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Book 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



















BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


A Study of the Literature of the Old Testament 
for Secondary Schools 



HERBERT R. PURINTON 

w 

Professor of Biblical Literature, Bates College 



MERRILL a WEBBER COMPANY 
AUBURN, MAINE 
1 923 



3S i 1 

.TV 


Copyright, 1923 

> 

By Herbert R. Purinton 



SEP 12 ’23 


©C1A711839 


TO MY WIFE 

LOYAL AND SELF-DENYING 


COMPANION 







PREFACE 


This textbook has been prepared for the use of 
secondary schools, both public schools and church 
schools, with the approval of the Board of Control 
for the Accreditment of Bible Study in the state of 
Maine. The Commissioner of Education, Dr. Augus¬ 
tus 0. Thomas, more than four years ago, appointed 
a commission to consider methods of teaching the 
Bible to students of high school age. On this com¬ 
mission were representatives of the four colleges of 
Maine, the public schools, the Protestant denom¬ 
inations, and the State Sunday School Association. 
A plan was worked out which, while conserving the 
freedom of the churches from state control, gave 
them the benefit of the educational prestige of the 
colleges and public schools in raising the standards 
of biblical study. This plan is fully described in 
Bulletin Number Three, which may be obtained from 
the Department of Education, State House, Augusta, 
Maine. 

The experience of the past four years with this 
plan in the churches, public schools, and academies 
has shown the need of an inexpensive textbook for 
the guidance of both students and teachers. By 
omitting the reprinting of the text of the Bible it 
has been possible to save one half the usual expense 
of a book of this sort. This omission has the real 
advantage of sending the student to the Bible itself 
and of making him familiar, in outline at least, with 
the greatest classic of the ages. 

v 


VI 


PREFACE 


The thirty-six lessons of this book will be found 
adapted for use once a week in the academies and 
high schools as a part of the course in English liter¬ 
ature, and in the churches for use once a week in 
the Sunday school. Indeed, the chapters were used 
as lessons in a school last year and are the result 
of the collective experience of five teachers, who 
have contributed to the material in the book. To 
one of these teachers, Sadie Brackett Costello, very 
much of the credit should be given, if these studies 
should prove valuable. From her wide range of 
reading she has furnished the chapters with a large 
part of their illustrative material, and her remark¬ 
able success in using these outlines with her students 
has led to the hope that they may be useful to other 
teachers. 

Many books have been used in the compilation of 
these lessons; among them the following have 
proved specially helpful. 

Moulton, The Modern Reader’s Bible, The Old Testament, 
Macmillan, New York, $2.25. 

Wild, A Literary Guide to the Bible, Doran, New York, $2.00. 

Muilenburg, Specimens of Biblical Literature, Crowell, New 
York, $2.00. 

Gardiner, The Bible as English Literature, Scribner’s, New 
York, $1.50. 

Hutchins, The Religious Experience of Israel, Association 
Press, New York, $1.90. 

Kent, Historical Bible, Scribner’s, New York, $1.50 a volume. 

An excellent brief commentary is the Bible for Home and 
School, edited by Shailer Mathews_ and published by the 
Macmillan Company. The volumes on Genesis and Isaiah 
are especially helpful. 

For thorough study the New Century Bible is one of the best 
aids. 


PREFACE 


VII 


Every library should contain a recent Bible dictionary such 
as Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible in one volume, Scrib¬ 
ner’s, New York, $7.00. 

The American Standard, Moffatt’s, and Weymouth’s, are the 
most helpful translations of the Bible. 

Three introductions to the literature of the Old Testament 
should be mentioned for the sake of those who desire to go 
thoroughly into the subject: Fowler, A History of the 
Literature of the Ancient Hebrews from the Earliest Times 
to 135 B.C., Macmillan, 1912, $2.40. 

Bewer, The Literature of the Old Testament in its Historical 
Development, Columbia University Press, New York, 1922, 
$5.00. 

Driver, An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testa¬ 
ment, Scribner’s, New York, 1910, $2.50. 

I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to my 
wife, Carrie J. Purinton, to my son and daughter, 
Mr. and Mrs. Arthur L. Purinton, and to Mrs. Sadie 
Brackett Costello for aid in carrying this book 
through the press. 

Permission to reprint extracts from their book 
has been granted by the following publishers: 
Charles Scribner’s Sons; the Association Press; the 
University of Chicago Press; William J. Hutchins; 
George H. Doran Company, from Wild’s Literary 
Guide to the Bible and A. R. Gordon’s Prophets of 
the Old Testament; The Columbia University Press, 
from Bewer’s Literature of the Old Testament; The 
Macmillan Company, from Fowler’s History of the 
Literature of Ancient Israel. (Permission granted to 
apply to the United States only). Full credit has 
been given to authorities quoted at the points where 
the quotations occur. 


Lewiston, Maine 
August 25, 1923. 


Herbert R. Purinton. 

























CONTENTS 


Chapter Page 

Introduction by Dr. Augustus O. Thomas . 1 

1. The Bible as Literature . 7 

PART 1 

LITERARY SELECTIONS WITH A BACKGROUND OF 
PRIMITIVE HISTORY 

2 . The Creation Stories . 15 

3. The Serpent in the Garden . 22 

4. The Great Flood . 28 

PART 2 

LITERARY SELECTIONS WITH A PATRIARCHAL 
BACKGROUND 

5. Sketches from the Life of Abraham . 34 

6 . Two Chapters from the Life of Isaac . 40 

7. Jacob: A Character Study, Part 1 . 47 

8 . Jacob: A Character Study, Part 2 . 52 

9. Biography of Joseph, Part 1 . 56 

10. Biography of Joseph, Part 2 60 

PART 3 

LITERARY SELECTIONS WITH THE BEGINNINGS OF THE 
•NATIONAL HISTORY FOR A BACKGROUND 

11. The Romance of Moses’ Mission . 66 

12. The Ballad of the Red Sea . 71 

13. The Beginnings of Hebrew Law . 78 

14. The Balaam Oracles . 85 

PART 4 

LITERARY SELECTIONS ILLUSTRATING THE FRONTIER LIFE 
OF THE HEBREWS DURING THE FIRST CENTURY 
IN PALESTINE 

15. The Song of Deborah . 90 

16. The Sword of the Lord and Gideon . 94 

17. The Idyl of Ruth . 99 

18. The Boy Samuel . 105 


IX 






















X 


CONTENTS 


Chapter Page 

PART 5 

LITERARY SELECTIONS WITH THE HEBREW MONARCHY 

FOR A BACKGROUND 

19. The Choice of Saul as the First King . 108 

20. Vignettes of Jonathan and David . 112 

21 . David as an Outlaw . 116 

22 . David’s Elegy . 120 

23. How Jerusalem Became the Holy City . 125 

24. The Ingratitude of a Royal Son . 129 

25. The Epic of Jeroboam . 132 

PART 6 

LITERARY SELECTIONS FROM THE PERIOD OF THE TWO 
RIVAL KINGDOMS, FROM 937 TO 586 B. C. 

26. The Elijah Cycle . 136 

27. The Prophet in King’s Courts . 139 

28. Isaiah the Young Prophet and Poet . 143 


PART 7 

LITERARY SELECTIONS WITH THE BABYLONIAN EXILE 

AS A BACKGROUND 


29. The Poetry of Hope . 149 

30. Some Adventures of Daniel at the Babylonian Court 153 

31. The Song of the Suffering Servant . 157 

PART 8 

LITERARY SELECTIONS FROM THE PERSIAN AND GREEK 
PERIODS OF JEWISH HISTORY 

32. The Story of Jonah . 163 

33. Biblical Nature Lyrics . 167 

34. An Impressionist Picture of Old Age . 172 

35. Two Songs of Trust . 176 

36. The Hymnbook of the Pilgrims . 180 

Conclusion : How this Literature Became a Part 

of Our Bible . 185 




















INTRODUCTION 

By 

Dr. Augustus 0. Thomas 
State Commissioner of Education 

This textbook on the Bible is issued under the 
direction of the Board of Control for the Accredit- 
ment of Bible Study with the hope that it may 
help meet one of our greatest needs. No lover of 
mankind can fail to see the need of strengthening 
the foundations on which civilization rests. No one 
doubts that there is a world emergency which makes 
it necessary that we return to the source of the 
faith of our fathers for inspiration and wisdom. 
Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States, has 
said repeatedly, “The thing which the world needs 
most is a proper spiritual conception of human rela¬ 
tionships.” This spiritual conception of life is no¬ 
where so well expressed as in the Bible. Professor 
Cook of Yale did not over-estimate the importance 
of the world’s greatest book when he said, that the 
English Bible is the chief bond which holds united 
in a common loyalty and a common endeavor the 
various branches of the English race, and more than 
anything else it tends to make perpetual that loyalty 
and that high endeavor. 

In our desire to avoid religious animosity we 
have gone to the extreme of removing from our 

1 


2 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


whole scheme of education that very factor which 
may be the one thing that will prevent universal 
animosity and will keep men from destroying that 
vision of the brotherhood of man which is the hope 
of a progressive civilization. What you put into 
the minds of your children through your educational 
system will come out in the life and destiny of the 
nation. If the Bible is the greatest well-spring of 
spiritual values known to the human race, and is 
non-sectarian and non-denominational, why does 
our plan of the education for the youth of the nation 
ignore it? The time has come when the leaders of 
state and church, while preserving intact our great 
heritage of religious freedom, should unite in a 
demand that the Bible, the supreme expression in 
literature of the deepest principles of life, become 
an integral part of our education. 

This was the motive which inspired the Governor 
of the State and the Legislature in their recent 
action requiring that the Bible be read in the public 
schools. The Governor issued a special message on 
the subject of “The Bible in the Public Schools/’ 
embodying an address of mine given before a com¬ 
mittee of the Legislature from which I wish to take 
the remainder of this introduction. 

The Bible is the instrument of progress of all 
western civilization, for those nations which have 
rested upon it have made greater progress in all 
lines of human endeavor than those which have not 
known it. It is the greatest production and the 
greatest force in the world. It has come down to us 


INTRODUCTION 


3 


through generations, centuries, almost without 
changing a jot. It has withstood the onslaughts of 
the atheist and the pagan and the idolator. It has 
survived the changing creeds of men. Its very 
mystery has been its strength and has allowed each 
individual to read into it that which most satisfied 
the hunger of his own soul. Strange that we can¬ 
not see that religion is individual, personal; that I 
may read the Bible my way and you may read it 
yours; that we may not agree possibly on the way of 
salvation but it cannot he said by intelligent men 
that any one man or any set of men or any company 
of human beings, organization or association, has 
the only royal road to the soul's triumph. The 
Bible, therefore, is a personal instrument and every 
man must he allowed to interpret it acording to his 
own reason, investigation, and the best light he 
can obtain. 

The Bible is the wonder of wonders, a master¬ 
piece of English, perfection of diction, the height 
of inspiration, complete in history, absorbing in 
romance, rhythmic in poetry, brilliant in philosophy 
and proverb, and startling in its revelations. It is 
the inspiration of law and as our Constitution is the 
fundamental law of a land, so the Ten Command¬ 
ments form the basis of all civil and statutory law. 
Any human law which conflicts with the tenets of 
the Ten Commandments could scarcely stand on the 
statute books of the state or nation. 

The Bible has been the inspiration of the world’s 
masterpieces in music, in art, and in literature. The 


4 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


world is richer for Handel’s Messiah , Meyerbeer’s 
Prophet Elijah , Haydn’s Creation; in sculpture, 
Angelo’s Moses; in art, Da Vinci’s Last Supper and 
Angelo’s Sistine Madonna , portraying the mother’s 
love, the finest sentiment which springs from the 
human heart. 

The Bible is the inspiration of literature. The 
great masterpieces have sprung from it,—Milton’s 
Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, Bunyan’s 
Pilgrim’s Progress and even down to the later days 
of Lew Wallace, Ben Hur, and Ibanez’ The Four 
Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It would not seem 
exactly right that this book, vast in its storehouse 
of riches, tremendous in its influence on human life, 
should be excluded from the learners of today. 

No matter how you interpret the Bible, you can¬ 
not get away from the fact of its moral and relig¬ 
ious significance. There are those who believe 
literally in the story of creation as found in Gene¬ 
sis—that man came instantly from the word of God. 
There are others who believe in the long, unfolding 
process of immutable and unchanging laws. There 
are those who believe that Job was a real character 
and suffered pain and humiliation. Others believe 
that he was a character in Hebrew fiction and played 
on the stages of the old, old world. There are those 
who believe that Moses stretched forth his rod and 
parted the waters of the Red Sea. There are those 
who contend that the monsoon blew steadily in one 
direction for a period and piled up the waters of 
the sea leaving dry sands over which Moses and the 


INTRODUCTION 


5 


children of Israel passed, but the monsoon changed 
instantly when its season was over and released the 
waters to deluge Pharaoh and his host. There are 
those who believe that God fed the children of 
Israel in the wilderness by the daily dropping of 
manna. Others believe that they ate from the fruit 
of the wilderness in a purely natural way. There 
are those who believe in the miracle of Christ, while 
others believe him to be the natural son of Joseph 
and Mary. But no matter what you may believe 
concerning the origin and nature of the Bible, you 
cannot gainsay the fact that as a signboard of 
human destiny it can never be displaced. 

The Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount 
contain the essence of human relationships, and the 
embodiment of Christian life is given in the Golden 
Rule. The simplicity of religious acts and of Chris¬ 
tian bearing are found in the words of Christ as he 
gathered about him his disciples and said, When 
saw we thee an hungered and fed thee, and he re¬ 
plied, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 
least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me. 
He set up the simple, tangible ideals of Christian 
service and the spiritual values which the world 
needs today. Whether Jew or Gentile, Catholic or 
Protestant, all must agree that the principles of the 
man-child are eternal, as broad as human interests, 
as high as justice, and as deep as human hope. 

The Governor in his message, the substance of 
which we have just been giving says, “This state¬ 
ment is one that should be taken to heart by every 


6 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


citizen of the state.” We shall show that we have 
taken it to heart if we see to it that the Bible is 
taught to all our children. This book has been pre¬ 
pared by one who has had long experience in teach¬ 
ing the Bible, and the chapters of the book have 
been used successfully as lessons with high school 
classes in different parts of the state. I gladly com¬ 
mend it to the consideration of our high schools, 
academies, and churches. 


Chapter I 

THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE 

1. A New Application of the Word Literature. 

The first surprising thing to the beginner in this 
literary study of the Bible is that the sacred Scrip¬ 
tures can be properly viewed as. literature at all. 
It has always seemed necessary to read and under¬ 
stand it on different principles of interpretation 
from those by which we explain other books; but 
when we think accurately about the matter we per¬ 
ceive that the authors of the Bible, whether poets, 
historians, orators, priests, or story-tellers, had to 
express themselves through the ordinary channels 
of voice and pen and use the language and rules of 
speech of other people in order to be understood. 
And when we try to explain a difficult biblical pas¬ 
sage, we must be guided by the same principles and 
methods that we use in studying Milton, Bunyan, 
and Tennyson. While the original books of our 
Bible were written in Hebrew and Greek, yet for 
us it is English literature. So well have the trans¬ 
lators rendered the Hebrew and Greek into English 
that the Bible is generally regarded as the standard 
of literary style for all the English-speaking world. 
Macaulay, the eminent essayist and historian, 
asserted that if everything else in our language 
should perish, the Bible alone would suffice to show 
the extent of its beauty and power. 


7 


8 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


2. An Unexpected Variety of Literary Forms. 

The reader whose eyes have just been opened to 
the beauty of the Bible should first survey the whole 
biblical landscape. When he does take a bird’s-eye 
view of the familiar book under the guidance of one 
who knows its literary beauties, he will be as sur¬ 
prised as the boy who walks through the woods 
with a teacher of botany. On every side he finds an 
astonishing variety of new forms, and a rich and 
varied beauty to which he had been blind. For 
example, at Genesis 3 is a vivid story in the form of 
an allegory; at Genesis 37 begins a fascinating biog¬ 
raphy of the boy with the ‘ ‘ coat of many colors; ’ ’ 
at Exodus 15 one comes upon a brilliant poem, The 
Ballad of the Red Sea; at Judges 5 is the Ode of 
Deborah, an antiphonal song of great literary merit; 
at Judges 9 is the fable of Jotham, which he tells 
at the expense of his conceited brother; at First 
Kings 18:20-40 is an oration by Elijah, by which 
he turns the tide of popular sentiment against a 
heathen religion; at Isaiah 5 occurs a parable, by 
which the prophet suddenly pricks the conscience 
of a careless crowd; at Daniel 7 is a vision, called 
by scholars an apocalyptic vision because it de¬ 
scribes historical events under the form of weird, 
supernatural figures; Psalm 23 is a lyric poem and 
Job is a dramatic poem. Many other forms and 
figures might be pointed out by our literary guide 
in the wonderful regions of the Old and New Testa¬ 
ments. It turns out that the literary study of the 
Bible, while not detracting from our reverence for 
its religious teachings, does wonderfully enhance 
our appreciation of the high place which the Bible 
occupies in the literature of the world. 


THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE 


9 


3. Estimates of the Bible by Literary Men. 

Matthew Arnold, the great English critic, says: 

“As well imagine a man with a sense for sculpture not 
cultivating it by the help of the remains of Greek art, 
and a man with a sense for poetry not cultivating it by 
the help of Homer and Shakespeare, as a man with a 
sense for conduct not cultivating it by the help of the 
Bible.” 

Goethe, who read the Bible so much that his friends 
reproached him for wasting his time over it, gives 
the following estimate of it: 

“I am convinced that the Bible becomes even more beauti¬ 
ful the more one understands it.Let culture and 

science go on advancing, and the mind progress as it 
may, it will never go beyond the elevation and moral 
culture of Christianity as it glistens and shines forth in 
the Gospels .... The greater the intellectual progress 
of ages, the more fully possible will it also become to 
employ the Bible both as the foundation and as the in¬ 
strument of education—of that education by which not 
pedants, but truly wise men are formed.” 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, a wide reader of all the 

best writings in the world, spoke thus of the Bible: 

11 The most original book in the world is the Bible. . . . 
Shakespeare, the first literary genius of the world, the 
highest in whom the moral is not the predominating ele¬ 
ment, leans on the Bible; his poetry presupposes it. If 
we examine this brilliant influence—Shakespeare—as it 
lies in our mind we shall find it reverent, not only of the 
letter of this book, but of the whole frame of society 
which stood in Europe upon it ... . People imagine 
that the place which the Bible owes in the world it owes 
to miracles. It owes it simply to the fact that it came 
out of a profounder depth of thought than any other 
book. ’ ’ 

Sir William Jones says: 

“I have carefully and regularly perused these Holy Script¬ 
ures, and am of the opinion that the volume, independently 
of its Divine origin, contains more sublimity, purer 
morality, more important history, and finer strains of elo¬ 
quence, than can be collected from all other books in 
whatever language they may have been written.” 



10 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


William Henry Huxley, in making a plea for the 
use of the Bible in the public schools of London, said: 

“The Bible is written in the noblest and purest English, 
and abounds in exquisite beauties of a merely literary 
form; and, finally, that it forbids the veriest hind who 
never left his village to be ignorant of the existence of 
other countries and other civilizations, and of a great 
past, stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest 
nations in the world. By the study of what other book 
could children be so much humanised, and made to feel 
that each figure in that vast historical procession, fills, 
like themselves, but a momentary space in the interval 
between two eternities, and earns the blessings or the 
curses of all time, according to its efforts to do good and 
hate evil, even as they also are earning their payment for 
their work?” 

4. A Table of Literary Forms. 

It will be convenient to have for handy reference 
the following partial list of various literary forms 
and figures with which the student should become 
familiar. 


POETRY 


Lyric 

Elegiac—The Lament of David 
Love song 


2 Samuel 1:17-27 
The Song of Songs 


Psalm 23 


Ode—Song of Deborah 

Ballad—Song of Miriam 

Anthem—The Nation Israel 

Processional 

Oracles of a Seer 

Didactic 

Dramatic 

A Wedding Song 

Prayer 

Doom Song 

Nature Song 

Morning Hymn 

Evening Hymn 

Penitential Hymn 

Communion Psalm 

A Meditation 


Job 


Psalm 45 
Psalm 72 
Isaiah 14 
Psalm 29 
Psalm 3 
Psalm 4 
Psalm 51 
Psalm 103 
Psalm 90 


Judges 5 
Exodus 15 
Psalm 105 
Psalm 24 


Numbers 22-24 
Deuteronomy 32 



THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE 


11 


Prophetic 

Isaiah 53 

Riddle 

Judges 14:14 

Ritualistic 

Psalm 136 

Proverbial 

Proverbs 15 

Philosophic 

Psalm 139 


PROSE 

History—Call of Saul 

I Samuel 9 

Story—iWooing of Rebekah 

Genesis 24 

Biography—Joseph 

Genesis 37-50 

Oration 

Deuteronomy 29 

Sermon 

Jeremiah 7 

Epistle 

Jeremiah 9 

Idyl 

Ruth 

Historical Romance 

Esther 

Parable 

2 Samuel 12 

Essay 

Ecclesiastes 5:10-6:12 

Law 

Exodus 20 

Wisdom 

Proverbs 8 

Invective 

Joel 3 

Emblem Prophecy 

Ezekiel 37 

Satire 

Isaiah 44:9-20 

Dialogue 

Micah 6:1-8 

5. Knowledge of the 

Form Helps Understand tl 


Meaning. 


He who reads an allegory as if it were literal 
history is likely to mistake the meaning. Men who 
assert that the Bible teaches that the serpent talked 
and the ass spoke should remember that Genesis 3 
and Numbers 22 are allegories or parables, and that 
the authors did not mean to be taken literally. This 
illustrates the need of knowing the literary form 
which the ancient writer adopted to convey his 
message. Such knowledge not only adds to our 
enjoyment in reading the Bible, but also safeguards 
us against error. 

A curious error has been made in the explanation 
of Job 3:4. Someone who was ignorant of the fact 
that Job was a dialogue with several persons taking 


12 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


part, credited the Bible with the saying “Skin for 
skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his 
life. ? ’ But this selfish doctrine is not biblical; it is 
rather satanic as one may see by observing that 
Satan was the speaker in verse 4. 

Sometimes it is an obscure word or sentence which 
may be cleared up by the help of the literary struc¬ 
ture. For example, in Psalm 19:4 the following 
poetic parallelism occurs: 

Their line is gone out through all the earth, 

And their words to the end of the world. 

The word “line” is found only this once in the 
Hebrew language, and the lexicographers have no 
way of determining its meaning. The meaning of 
the root of the word is entirely unknown. The only 
way of finding its significance is by a study of the 
poetic form in which the word is used. It is well 
known that these two lines form a synonymous 
parallelism, the meaning of the first line is substanti¬ 
ally the same as that of the second. It follows that 
the subject of the first line should agree in thought 
with the subject of the second. Therefore “line” 
is equivalent to “words” and should be translated 
“word” or “message.” In many other ways a 
knowledge of the form helps make clear the thought. 

6. The Life Back of the Literature. 

Great literature is produced by great lives, and 
great lives come to fruition in the midst of great 
historical scenes. This is true of the Bible. It 
should be read in the light of its background of 
epoch-making deeds wrought by men whose names 
are household words in every civilized nation. As 


THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE 


13 


Longfellow’s Evangeline and Tennyson’s In Mem- 
onam gain in interest when read in the light of the 
incidents which the poems celebrate, so the biblical 
poems and stories have a richer meaning when the 
remarkable history out of which they sprang is 
clearly held in mind. 

The following main divisions of the historical 
background should be remembered by those who 
wish to relive the scenes out of which grew the 
world’s greatest book. 

1. Primitive History: Before the time of Abra¬ 
ham. From that era only dimly remembered oral 
traditions were preserved. 

2. The Patriarchal Period: From Abraham to 
Moses, 2000 to 1200 B. C. No Hebrew writing of 
that period has been handed down in its original 
form. Later writers probably had to rely on oral 
traditions for their knowledge of the patriarchs. 

3. The Beginnings of Hebrew National History: 
From Moses to Joshua, 1200 to 1150 B. C. Oral 
traditions only. 

4. Frontier Life in Palestine, the period of the 
Judges and Samuel, 1150 to 1020 B. C. Beginnings 
of poetry. 

5. The Hebrew Monarchy: The reigns of Saul, 
David, and Solomon, 1020 to 937 B. C. The begin¬ 
nings of historical writing in I Samuel. 

6. The Two Rival Kingdoms, Judah and North¬ 
ern Israel, 937 to 586 B. C. The great era of pro¬ 
phecy. 

7. The Babylonian Exile, 586 to 536 B. C. The 


14 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


Hebrews settled in three countries: Babylonia, 
Egypt, and Palestine. A period of great literary 
activity; earlier writings collected and revised, and 
new poems and prophecies written. 

8. The Persian and Greek Periods of Jewish 
History: From Cyrus the Great to Judas Macca¬ 
beus, 536 to 165 B. C. Alexander the Great con¬ 
quered the Orient during these periods and extended 
the influence of Greek thought and the Greek lan¬ 
guage among the Jews. 

The Wisdom books and the Psalms belong largely 
to this period. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

What true distinction has been made between the Bible 
and all other literatures? 

Why, however, did the Bible writers have to conform to the 
principles and methods that control ordinary human 
beings in their use of language? 

Name in your notebooks the original languages of the Bible, 
and write a brief discussion of the translations of the 
Bible into English. See dictionaries of the Bible and 
other sources of information. 

Look up all the references in paragraph 2 and be prepared 
for a quiz on the different literary forms in the Bible. 

Quote the estimate of the Bible by one of the great modern 
authors. 

Study the Table of Literary Forms and be prepared to 
give an example of each form mentioned there. 

Give two or more examples of the way a knowledge of the 
form helps one understand the Bible. 

Give an illustration from modern literature of the impor¬ 
tance of a knowledge of the historical background of a 
piece of writing. 

Memorize the eight main periods of biblical history which 
form the background on which the literature should be 
studied. 


Part 1 

LITERARY SELECTIONS WITH A BACK¬ 
GROUND OF PRIMITIVE HISTORY 


Chapter II 

THE CREATION STORIES 

The Earliest Hebrew Story of Creation. Genesis 2: 4b-25. 

A Later Account of the Creation. Genesis I: 1 to 2:4a. 

A Babylonian Parallel. 

1. How the Hebrew Stories were Handed Down. 

Imagine yourself in the home of Ruth in Bethle¬ 
hem three thousand years ago. It is a warm 
starlight evening. Ruth and her husband, Boaz, 
and their little son are entertaining guests, in the 
summer room on the housetop. A travelling bard 
is telling stories of the olden time and chanting 
ballads of the heroic deeds of the fathers. These 
stories and ballads had not yet been put into written 
form, but were preserved from generation to gener¬ 
ation by bards and prophets who stored them up in 
their marvellous memories. Deuteronomy (6:6,7) 
suggests that the fathers also repeated these tradi¬ 
tions to their children. It is likely, too, that Hebrew 
travellers and groups of warriors as they gathered 
around their campfires at night would recount 
daring exploits of their predecessors. 

Among the many stories thus handed down were 
probably the following: The Creation, the Serpent 

15 



16 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


in the Garden, the Great Flood, Cain and Abel, the 
Crossing of the Red Sea, and Deborah’s Victory 
over the Canaanites. What the legends of Homer 
meant to the youth of Greece, shaping their ambi¬ 
tion and guiding their action, this the Hebrew 
stories meant to the young men of the Chosen Race. 
And, as in the case of Homer, the legends were not 
written until generations later, so the stories of 
Genesis did not take written form for a long period 
of time. 

2. Comparison of the two Accounts of the Creation. 

Genesis 2: 4b-25 was a part of the first great his¬ 
torical document ever written by the Hebrews. It 
was not until three hundred years later, if we may 
trust modern scholars, that the priests, of Israel 
prepared their church history of which Genesis I 
was a part. 

But it is not only in date that the two accounts 
differ, but also in style and in their way of describ¬ 
ing God. Genesis 2 is picturesque; it draws a 
picture of God making man from the dust and 
breathing into his nostrils the breath of life; He 
creates a beautiful river that flows through the 
Garden of Eden; He commands the animals to pass 
in procession before man to receive their names, 
and takes a rib from man’s side and out of it creates 
woman. 

Read aloud the first of the three sections into 
which Genesis 2 is divided, 4b-7 (the creation of 
man), and observe the rhythm, which makes one 
feel that he is reading poetry. It might be repre¬ 
sented thus: 


THE CREATION STORIES 


17 


In the day when the Lord Jehovah made earth and heaven, 

Then no plant of the field was in the earth, 

And no herb of the field had yet sprung up; 

For the Lord Jehovah had not caused it to rain on the 
earth, 

And there was not a man to till the ground; 

But there went up a mist from the earth, 

And watered the whole face of the ground. 

And the Lord Jehovah formed man from the dust of the 
ground, 

And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, 

And man became a living soul. 

The second section (8-17) describes the garden 
in Eden, and the third (18-25) gives an account of 
the creation of the first woman. If it is viewed as 
an early poetic description of the one God, the 
Creator, and of the high ideal of marriage, in con¬ 
trast with parallel accounts in other nations, this 
narrative will he judged worthy of a place in our 
Bible. 

When we turn to the later account in Genesis 1, 
we find a less picturesque but a much more dignified 
description of God. As Creator he simply speaks 
the word and each stage of the creation is finished 
in its proper order. God is here distant and unap¬ 
proachable in contrast with the older version in 
which He is near and more like a human being, a 
master workman. 

Genesis 1 is also more formal, systematic, and 
precise in its style. This systematic style is illus¬ 
trated by the elaborate arrangement of the days of 
creation into two parallel sets of three whose mem¬ 
bers correspond. The first day gives us the habita¬ 
tion of light, while the fourth day tenants it with 
the heavenly bodies; the second day describes the 
regions of air and water, while the fifth day fills the 
air and water with birds and fishes; the third day 


18 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


brings forth the dry land, while the sixth day creates 
man and animals on the land. 

Another wide difference between the two stories 
is shown by the following table: 


Genesis 2:4b-25 


1 . 

Man fashioned 

1 . 

2. 

Garden planted 

2. 

3. 

Trees, and tree 

of life 3. 

4. 

River with four 

branches 4. 

5. 

Beasts and birds 

5. 

6. 

Woman created 

6. 


Genesis 1:1-2:4a 
Light created 
Firmament formed 
Dry land 

Stars, sun, and moon 

Living creatures 

Man and woman created 


3. A Parallel from Babylonia. 

In 1875 a Babylonian poem of the Creation was 
discovered in a library at Nineveh. This poem was 
known as early as 2000 B. C., which was 1400 years 
earlier than our present book of Genesis. The 
resemblances between the Hebrew and Babylonian 
stories are striking. As there were seven days of 
creation in Genesis, so there are seven tablets of 
creation in Babylonia. The order of events in the 
one is somewhat like the order in the other. For 
example, man was created on the sixth day in both 
accounts. 

The differences are even more important. In 
Babylonia we have many gods, and an emphasis 
upon the grosser features of life. In Genesis we 
have a lofty view of the one God and of man as 
made in the Divine image. To illustrate, we quote 
selections from two tablets: 

When above the heaven was not named, 

And beneath the earth bore no name, 

And the primeval Apsu, who begat them 

And Mummu Tiamat, the mother of them all,— 

Their waters were mingled together, 

And no field was formed, no marsh seen, 

When no other gods had been called into being, 


THE CREATION STORIES 


19 


Then were created the gods in the midst of heaven. 

When Marduk heard the word of the gods, 

His heart moved him, and he devised a cunning plan. 

He opened his mouth and unto Ea he spoke, 

That which he had conceived in his heart, he made known 
unto him; 

“My blood will I take and bone will I fashion, 

I shall make man that man may .... 

I shall create man who shall inhabit the earth. 

Let the worship of the gods be established, let their shrines 
be built. 

The contrast between the Bible and the Babylon¬ 
ian account is best illustrated in such stories as that 
of the struggle between the gods. The goddess 
Tiamat rebelled against the chief god Marduk. He 
gathered an army to subdue her. He won the 
battle, then cut her body into two parts; from the 
upper half he made the sky, from the lower half 
he made the earth. 

4. Contents and Teachings of the Creation Stories. 

When these stories are read in comparison with 
the accounts of Creation in other literatures, two 
facts will appear. First, the Bible uses the forms 
and traditions current in the ancient nations. For 
example, it has the seven days, or stages, of crea¬ 
tion in which the Babylonians believed. The ideas 
of chaos, water, light, the appearance of vegetation 
and the animals and man were much alike in 
several nations. So we are not to look to the Bible 
for new teachings in science, for it adopts the scien¬ 
tific facts current in the days' of the Biblical writers. 

Second, the Bible presents an entirely new view 
of God and man and moral life. Those who are 
looking for the evidences of inspiration should seek 
for it in the realm of religion and ethics. 


20 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


“In the beginning God.” The Bible opens with 
the loftiest thought that man ever conceived. Above 
all nations, directing the motions of all the heavenly 
bodies, and guiding the destinies of man, is one God. 
This is in sharp contrast to the teachings of other 
ancient literatures. They picture numerous gods, 
who are frequently quarrelling, whose power and 
goodness is very limited, and who seem to be com¬ 
petitors of mankind rather than guardian angels. 
To the Hebrew Bible we owe the priceless belief that 
at the center and core of this material universe there 
abides a loving, wise, and powerful being who made 
all things and cares for all. 

In the twenty-sixth verse of the first chapter of 
Genesis there is another teaching of surpassing 
importance to mankind; “In the image of God 
created He him.” It is strange that in the very 
first chapter of the Bible we have the two greatest 
religious ideas known to man: the unity of God, and 
the worth of man. Our own day is the first to 
estimate aright what it means to be made in the 
image of God. Every person, young or old, rich or 
poor, learned or ignorant, has something of divinity. 
Browning in his Rabbi Ben Ezra has expressed this 
for us: 

11 A spark disturbs our clod; 

Nearer we hold of God 

Who gives, than of his tribes that take, I must believe. ” 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Tell from memory the story of Creation in the first chapter 
of Genesis. 

Repeat the second story of Creation, as given in chapter 
two, bringing out the differences between this and the 
account in chapter one. 


THE CREATION STORIES 


21 


By what process did these stories find a place in our Bible? 

How do these two stories differ in their descriptions of 
God? 

Write in your notebook in parallel columns a summary of 
what occurred on each of the six days of creation, 
to show the correspondence between the first and fourth, 
second and fifth, and the third and sixth days. 

Show that the order of events in the first chapter of Gene¬ 
sis is different from that in the second. 

What likenesses do you find between the Bible and the 
Babylonian story of Creation? 

In what respect is the Bible story superior? 

When you compare the Bible with the Babylonian story of 
Creation, what two important facts do you learn about 
the methods and materials of the biblical authors? 

Bring into the class quotations from modern literature on 
the two chief religious teachings of this lesson. 

In what way were Haydn ’& Oratorio, The Creation, and 
Michelangelo’s painting of the Creation indebted to the 
Bible? 


Chapter III 

THE SERPENT IN THE GARDEN 


Serpent in the Garden. Genesis 3:1-24. 

Cain and Abel. Genesis 4:1-24. 

1. The Serpent in the Garden. 

Every thoughtful person sometimes asks himself 
how sin came into this beautiful world, which God 
created and pronounced good. This is the hardest 
question in the world. The story of the serpent is 
an attempt by a Hebrew writer to answer that ques¬ 
tion. The story took the form of dialogues which 
can be easily arranged by the student. 

Dialogue 1. The Temptation 

Place: Garden of Eden. Time: morning. Char¬ 
acters : serpent, woman, man. 

Serpent (speaking in a tone that suggests dis¬ 
trust of God), “Has God really said you shall not 
eat from any tree in the garden?” 

Woman, “From the fruit of all the trees of the 
garden we may eat except the tree in the midst. 
God said, ‘You shall not eat or touch it, lest you 
die.’” 

Serpent, “It will not hurt you. God is jealous 
lest having eaten you know good and evil.” 

Now the fruit looked appetising, and the woman 
was fascinated with the idea of becoming wise. So 
she ate and did not realize any hurt, and then gave 


22 


THE SERPENT IN THE GARDEN 


23 


to her husband who ate also. Their consciences 
began to trouble them, and they tried to conceal their 
shame by a covering of fig leaves. 

Dialogue 2. The Punishment 

Place: In the deeply wooded part of the garden. 
Time: Early evening. Characters: God, woman, 
man, serpent. God walks about alone, calls to the 
man, who with the woman has hidden. This should 
be completed by the students. 

2. The Literary Character of Genesis 3. 

The story of Gen. 3 has been well called ‘The 
Pearl of Genesis’. Note the actors in the drama: 
the man and the woman, both innocent, ignorant, 
untested; the serpent, always and everywhere the 
object of loathing, yet of fascination; Jehovah, rep¬ 
resented as walking in the garden in the cool of the 
day, apparently in the habit of talking familiarly 
with the man whom he has made. 

Prof. Wild in her valuable book, A Literary Guide 
to the Bible, says: “This is an example of the most 
spontaneous, original writing we have in the Bible. 
The simplicity is child-like, but the reach in pro¬ 
fundity of the religious and moral feeling is won¬ 
derful.” The balance and poetic rhythm are brought 
out in the following translation of certain sections: 

Cursed shalt thou be above all animals, 

And above all the beasts of the field. 

Enmity will I set between thee and the woman 
And between thy offspring and her offspring. 

He shall bruise thee on the head, 

And thou shalt wound him on the heel.” 


24 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


Although these stories in Genesis are printed in 
our Bible as prose, they are poetic in form as 
shown by the quotation. Read the lines above and 
note that the second line in each case is a repetition 
of the first. The word animals in the first line is 
repeated in the beasts of the field of the second line. 
In the next to the last line, the parallel meaning is 
brought out in the contrast between the word head 
and heel. 

Another evidence that this is poetry is found in 
the many figures of speech: the Serpent talks, God 
walks in the garden. This reminds us that we are 
dealing here with allegory, rather than history, for 
the narrative seeks to trace the origin of the ordi¬ 
nary experiences of life, so common and yet so puz¬ 
zling. It puts in vivid story-form the philosophy 
of such things as the distinction of sex, the institu¬ 
tion of marriage, the power of sin in the world, the 
custom of wearing clothes, the peculiarities of the 
snake, and the pain of childbearing. 

3. The Purpose and Meaning of Genesis 3. 

The main object of the author is to explain the 
origin of sin and the nature of temptation. Sin is 
disobedience to Jehovah’s commands, and was first 
suggested to the mind of the innocent woman by a 
serpent. Milton thought that the serpent repre¬ 
sented Satan, but the Bible makes no mention of 
Satan until many centuries after the period repre¬ 
sented here. Someone has said, “Could there be 
a better picture of temptation than that of the 
serpent, slimy, ugly, yet compelling? It can out- 
climb the monkey, out-swim the fish, out-leap the 
zebra, out-wrestle the athlete, and crush the tiger. 


THE SERPENT IN THE GARDEN 


25 


The serpent finds its way everywhere, over every 
fence, or barrier, into every crevice or recess. Note 
the subtle appeal to the physical appetite, to the 
esthetic, to the intellect. Temptation delights in 
disguises. It says, ‘Why will a man insist on being 
tied to his mother’s apron string? Let him go out 
and learn something, see the world, taste the sweets 
of life, and see the things which are beautiful.’ ” 
The author of Genesis 3 teaches us to guard against 
these appeals. 

Three important lessons are suggested by this 
passage: (1) Man had the power of choice, (2) Sin 
is of man’s creation, not God’s, (3) Sin severs the 
happy relations between man and God. 

“They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld 
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, 

Wav’d over by that flaming brand; the gate 
With dreadful faces throng’d, and fiery arms. 

Some natural tears they dropt, but wip’d them soon; 

The world was all before them, where to choose 
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide: 

They hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, 
Through Eden took their solitary way.” 

—Milton: Paradise Lost. 

4. The Story of Cain and Abel. G-enesis 4:1-15. 

This incident in the early history follows natural¬ 
ly the sketch of the beginning of sin. The story is 
easy to remember if we divide it as follows: verses 
1-4, the farmer Cain and the shepherd Abel make 
their offerings at the altar of Jehovah; verses 5-7, 
Jehovah rejects Cain’s offering because of spirit 
shown, and Cain is angry; verses 8-12, Cain murders 
Abel and Jehovah pronounces a curse; verses 13-22, 
protected by a certain mark, Cain goes out to found 
a new civilization in which there are cities, music, 


26 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


and the use of metals; 23 and 24 preserve in verse 
form a record of the old tribal custom of blood 
revenge. 

Bewer, in his Literature of the Old Testament, 
explains the mark which was put upon Cain, and 
also helps us understand certain other difficult allu¬ 
sions in this story. He thinks that the mark was 
probably some stamp on his body to indicate that 
he belonged to the tribe of Canaanites, a tribe fam¬ 
ous for its terrible custom of blood revenge. The 
story assumes also that there were very many other 
people in the world besides Adam’s family, for Cam 
went out and built a city. These two illustrations 
show that this incident belongs to a later stage of 
history than that of Adam, because the law of blood 
revenge and the existence of many people implies 
many generations after the first man. 

Some of the principles involved in the story of 
Cain and Abel are as follows: 

1. It is the character and spirit of our ser¬ 
vice that God observes. 

2. Great crimes are committed by men whose 
characters have crumbled gradually through the 
effects of little sins. 

3. Every man is his brother’s keeper, bound 
by the responsibility of brotherhood to guard 
him by influences for good. Phelps, in his 
Human Nature in the Bible , comments on this 
as follows: 

“Human responsibility was the law that Cain 
broke: his surly remark, ‘Am I my brother’s 
keeper?’ has come echoing down the ages, and re- 


THE SERPENT IN THE GARDEN 


27 


ceived a final answer in our Lord’s parable of the 
Good Samaritan. The rebellious element in Cain’s 
nature has made him a hot favorite with many poets, 
who turned him into a hero of drama, Byron’s Cain 
arousing the attention of Europe. But Cain was 
really no hero, he was simply very human. He 
seems more real than his mild brother. Cain’s 
descendants were important pioneers; the murderer 
Lamech had three sons—Jabal, the cowboy; Jubal, 
the musician; Tubal-Cain, the smith. It is pleasant 
to see, so early in history, music placed on an appar¬ 
ent equality with more ‘useful’ and philistine 
work. ’ ’ 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Each student should remember the substance of the Bible 
passages and be able to locate the passages from memory. 

Tell the story of the Serpent in the Garden in dialogue 
form. Who are the speakers in the dialogues? Write 
dialogue II in your notebooks. 

Is Gen. 3 prose or poetry? Compare two lines of Gen. 3:14 
with Psalm 2:10 and note one thing which makes us call 
them poetry. 

Is Gen. 3 a bit of literal history like Sam. 9, or like one of 
the parables of Jesus? 

Why is the Serpent an appropriate symbol of temptation? 

What consequence of the sin in the garden do you regard 
as most terrible? 

Give the outline of the story of Cain and Abel and tell 
why the author inserted that at this point. 

What verse in this story is most often quoted, and what 
principle is involved in it? 


Chapter IV 

THE GREAT FLOOD 


Primitive Account of the Flood. Parts of Genesis 6-8. 

Older Babylonian Story, in the Epic of Gilgamesh. 

1. The Earlier Account of the Flood. 

We get a clearer and more consistent story of 
the flood if we select the following verses only, from 
Genesis, chapters six to eight: 6 :5-8; 7 :l-5, 10, 16b, 
17, 22, 23; 8 :6-12, 20-22. The remaining verses of 
these chapters also give a complete story of the flood 
which differs in some points from the primitive 
version. For example, Gen. 7:24 gives the length 
of the flood as 150 days, while the older account in 
Genesis 7 :17 states the time as 40 days. 

It is evident that there are two accounts of the 
flood woven together in these chapters. This is 
explained by the fact that early history in the Bible 
was based on records written at different times and 
in different places. In Judah about 850 B. C. a 
history was written which we call J because it 
used the name of Jehovah for God. About four 
hundred years later another history was written 
which we call P because it is chiefly interested in 
the priests and their laws. Later, when our present 
Pentateuch was completed, these separate histories 
were brought together. This habit of combining 
different histories into one explains why inconsisten¬ 
cies often appear in the narrative. 

28 


THE GREAT FLOOD 


29 


2. Babylonian Flood Story. 

The Babylonians had an account of the Flood 
which has been preserved for us in a long poem 
which they called the Gilgamesh Epic. Rogers, in 
his Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament, says 
in substance, that this epic is the most beautiful and 
most extensive poem which has been preserved to 
us from the literature of the ancient Babylonians. 
It consisted originally of twelve large tablets, many 
of which have been broken and parts lost. In the 
form in which we have it, the poem dates from 
about 650 B. C., but it contains long passages written 
as early as 2000 B. C. 

The following quotations from the Babylonian 
story of the flood will suffice to enable the student 
to make a comparison with the biblical account: 

“O Gilgamish, I will tell thee a wonderful story. 

Thou knowest the city of Shurippak on the Euphrates? 

It was corrupt, and the gods decided to destroy it with a 
flood. 

Ea, the god of wisdom, confided their plans to me. 

‘Thou man of Shurippak, build a ship; 

Forsake thy wealth and save thy life. 

Take living beasts of every kind into the ship. 

Measure its proportions well, and into the sea shalt 
launch it.’ ” 


‘‘ The god Shamash appointed a season and said: 
‘In the night I will cause the heavens to rain; 
Enter the ship and close the door. ’ 

The evening of which he spoke came; 

I watched the approaching storm; 

I entered the ship and closed the door. 

The deluge covered the surface of the earth. 

In a single day it rose above the mountains, 

And like a battle it rushed upon the people. 

A brother heeded not his brother; 

Men would not help each other. 

Six days and nights passed; 





30 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


The wind and storm were overwhelming. 

On the seventh day at dawn, the wind ceased; 

The storm, which had smitten the earth like an earthquake, 
was quieted. 

I looked out upon the sea; 

All mankind had turned to clay; 

Like reeds their corpses floated on the water. 

Grieved, I sat down to weep.” 

‘‘When the seventh day approached, 

I sent forth a dove and let her go. 

The dove flew away and came back, 

For there was no resting place and she returned, 

I sent forth a swallow and let her go, 

The swallow flew away and came back, 

For there was no resting place and she returned. 

I sent forth a raven and let her go, 

The raven flew away, she saw the abatement of the waters, 
She drew near, she waded, she croaked and came not back. 
Then I sent everything forth to the four quarters of 
heaven, I offered sacrifice; 

I made a libation upon the mountain’s peak. 

The gods smelt the savor, 

The gods smelt the sweet savor, 

The gods gathered like flies over the sacrificer. ” 

3. Comparison of the Hebrew and Babylonian Ac¬ 
counts of the Flood. 

The Babylonian account as a whole compared 
with Genesis shows many close parallels. Note the 
following: the building of a ship or ark with stories; 
animals and people enter the ark, and the door is 
closed; the destruction of all living things by a great 
flood; the sending forth of a dove and a raven, the 
offering of sacrifices after disembarking; the gods 
smell the sweet savor; the promise that mankind 
will never again be destroyed by a flood. 

This likeness does not prove that Genesis 
borrowed its account from the Babylonians, but 
rather shows that both records of the flood grew up 
in the same great section of the world in the same 



THE GREAT FLOOD 


31 


general period of human history. The real explana¬ 
tion of the likeness is that the Babylonian language 
was the language of diplomacy like the French of 
modern times. Ideas current in one part of the 
ancient world were carried everywhere and in this 
way Hebrew writers would learn the story. 

Dr. Banks, in his The Bible and the Spade, explains 
the connection between the two accounts as follows: 
“It is often stated that the Hebrews borrowed the 
story from the Babylonians, or that the Babylonians 
borrowed it from the Hebrews, yet it can hardly be 
said that one can borrow that which is one’s own. 
Babylonia was the birthplace of the Hebrews; the 
scenes of the first two thousand years of their his¬ 
tory were along the Euphrates, and the stories of 
the creation, of the Garden of Eden and of the 
deluge, belonged to them as much as to the Baby¬ 
lonians. The stories of King Alfred belong not only 
to the English; they belong also to the English 
colonists wherever they have gone. Thus Baby¬ 
lonian history and literature, until the days of 
Abraham, was the only history and literature the 
Hebrews had. It is then not correct to say that the 
Hebrews borrowed the story from the Babylonians; 
it was the story of their own people, the story they 
carried with them when they left their native land 
to cross the desert.” 

The differences are more important than the like¬ 
nesses of the flood stories. The Scripture account 
rises above the degrading polytheism of Babylonia, 
whose angry gods caused the flood, and describes 
the God of Heaven sorrowfully punishing a wicked 
generation for the sake of the future good of the 
race. The character of Noah is also an exalted one 


32 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


and found worthy of a place in that wonderful 
gallery of pictures of men of faith in Hebrews 11. 
The Bible record is far superior both morally and 
religiously to the parallel record in Babylonia. 


4. The Lesson Material. 


These three accounts of the Flood ( J, P, and the 
Babylonian) suggest many interesting lines of study. 
It is important first of all for the student to note 
the fundamental agreement in the thought of all 
these writers. If one would prepare a table of the 
parallels in the three narratives as follows it would 
be instructive: 


J 

Gen. 6:5-8 
7:1-5 
7:10 
7:22, 23 
8 : 20-22 


P Babylonian 

Gen. 6:9-13 Line 3 

6:14-22 Lines 5-7 

7:11 13-15 

7:18-21 26, 27 

9:18-17 39, 40. 


Another interesting fact is the new method of the 
biblical authors at this point. The editor of Genesis 
six to nine has interwoven verses from J and P and 
has made a composite narrative. In the earlier 
chapters the editor chose complete sections from J 
and P, as we saw in the chapter on the Creation. 


5. The Teachings of this Ancient Story. 

(1) Evil works its own ruin. See Gen. 6:5. 

(2) The worth of faith. Hebrews 11:7. 

(3) Safety lies in obedience. Gen. 6:22. 

(4) God’s willingness to give the race a new 
start. Gen 8:1, 16, 17. 


THE GREAT FLOOD 


33 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Make a table of the parallels among the three accounts of 
the Flood as suggested in point 4, writing in your note¬ 
books, opposite the references, the substance of the 
verses. 

Test the statement in paragraph I by omitting the verses 
cited from chapters 6 to 8 and then see if a complete 
story of the Flood remains. 

Find three evidences in chapters six to eight that the narra¬ 
tive was compiled from two original accounts of the 
Flood. 

Name half a dozen likenesses between the Hebrew and 
Babylonian stories. 

What is the best explanation of this similarity in the 
accounts ? 

Why is the biblical account so much loftier in its view of 
God and man? 

Are there any fundamental principles of life on which both 
the Hebrew and Babylonian accounts agree? 


Part 2 

LITERARY SELECTIONS WITH A 
PATRIARCHAL BACKGROUND 


Chapter V 

SKETCHES FROM THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM 

The Migration of Abraham. Genesis 12:1-9. 

The Peace Pact. Genesis 13:1-12. 

The Flight of Hagar. Genesis 16:1-13. 

The Name Abram Changed to Abraham. Genesis 17:1-16. 

1. The New Stage in the Literature. 

When we reach the twelfth chapter of Genesis we 
enter a new literary field. Genesis 1 to 11 consisted 
of primitive narratives based on ancient traditions 
that dealt with the origin of the world and of man¬ 
kind, while the Abraham stories and all the records 
to the end of Genesis confine their attention to the 
Hebrew race. These stories glorifying the begin¬ 
nings of the Chosen People were told orally for a 
long period before they were reduced to writing. 

2. The Great Adventure of Abraham. 

Ur of the Chaldees, where Abraham was born 
nearly four thousand years ago, was even then a 
very old city, as old as London now is. Recent 
discoveries among the ruins of Ur enable us to imag¬ 
ine quite fully the life of the boy who became the 
founder of the Hebrew race. There were grand 
temples built of brick, substantial houses, wholesale 
and retail shops, business streets and wharves along 

34 



SKETCHES FROM THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM 35 


the canal where freight boats and passengers boats 
made their calls at regular intervals. Outside the 
city were fields and pastures. Abraham’s father 
was the owner of some of these, and he was rich in 
flocks and herds. 

The boy’s future prospects were very bright, but 
he was not contented to stay among the old familiar 
scenes. An inner voice told him (12:1) that some¬ 
thing awaited him in the great world beyond. With 
his father he went from Ur to Haran, and from there 
Abram pushed on to Palestine. He was not an old 
man as one might think from the age given in 12 :4. 
The Bible reckons ages on a different basis from that 
now in use, although scholars have not yet discov¬ 
ered that basis. There is nothing to show that 
human life was longer then than now, and Abraham 
gives all the evidences of having been a young 
man still. 

Abraham’s call to a great service has many par¬ 
allels in English literature. One of the best is Kip¬ 
ling’s The Explorer. 

’Til a voice as bad as conscience, rang interminable changes 

On one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated—so: 

Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind 
the ranges— 

Something lost behind the ranges. L*/st and waiting for 
you. Go. 


Then I knew, the while I doubted—knew His hand was cer¬ 
tain o’er me. 

Still—it might be self-delusion—scores of better men had 
died— 

I could reach the township living, but.He knows 

what terrors tore me .... 

But I didn’t .... but I didn’t .... I went down the 
other side. 


Anybody might have found it, but His whisper came to me. 





36 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


3. The Peace Pact between Abraham and Lot. 

Increasing wealth brought on trouble between the 
uncle and his nephew. While comparatively poor 
they had lived in peace together, but with increas¬ 
ing flocks and herds quarrels became common, and 
finally it seemed wise to Abraham that a separation 
should take place. When one reads this incident 
he should observe the writer’s evident aim to call 
attention to the generosity of Abraham and the 
selfishness of Lot. He seems to take delight in 
adding verse 13, which forbodes punishment for the 
selfish Lot. 

The meanness of Lot and the generosity of Abra¬ 
ham had a great effect on their descendants. The 
hilly and less fertile lands of Abraham developed 
a hardy race, and their descendants became the 
founders of the Hebrew nation; while the easy 
life in the plain and the proximity of Sodom with 
its harmful pleasures ruined the family of Lot. It 
is thought that the tribes of Ammon and Moab 
descended from Lot, and that their inferiority both 
in industry and morals resulted from their unfor¬ 
tunate location. It may be hard to decide whether 
environment is more influential than heredity, but 
certainly in this case the biblical author is interested 
in showing the power for evil of a bad environment. 

4. The Plight of Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian Slave- 

girl. 

According to the marriage customs of the East 
a master could marry any one of his own female 
slaves, but not a slave who happened to belong to 
his wife. Now the wife of Abraham had a maid¬ 
servant by the name of Hagar whom she urged 


SKETCHES FROM THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM 37 

Abraham to marry in order that he might have a son 
to perpetuate the family name, for Sarah had no 
children. When Hagar became the mother of the 
first-born son of Abraham, she showed her pride to 
her mistress, and this made her offensive to Sarah. 
Sarah made complaint to Abraham and he told 
her to do what she liked with the servant. Sarah 
then treated Hagar so harshly that she took her son 
and fled into the desert toward her old Egyptian 
home. 

As Hagar rested by a spring in the desert, an angel 
told her to return to her mistress and promised that 
her son should become the ancestor of an unnum¬ 
bered people. The Arabs today claim to be 
descended from Ishmael, and the Mohammedan 
religion sprang from that source. “Little did Sarah 
think when she persuaded Abraham to take Hagar 
that she was originating a rivalry which has run 
with keenest animosity through all ages, which 
oceans of blood have not quenched.” 

5. The Name Abram changed to Abraham. 

Marcus Dods in his valuable commentary on the 
Book of Genesis (The Expositor’s Bible) suggests 
that Abram was losing his high ideal for the future 
when this new vision came to him reminding him 
that he was a “father of nations” and that Sarah 
was a “princess,” and that she would bear a son 
who should be his true heir. He writes: Abraham 
“had learned to love the bold, brilliant, domineer¬ 
ing boy (Ishmael). He saw how the men liked to 
serve him and how proud they were of the young 

chief_So that the reminder that he was not the 

promised heir was not entirely welcome. .. .He could 


38 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


not suppress the somewhat peevish exclamation: 
Oh that Ishmael might serve thy turn!... .Would 
that what already exists in actual substance before 
the eye might satisfy Thee and fulfil Thine intention 
and supersede the necessity of further waiting!. .. . 
Must I cut my moorings and launch again on this 
ocean of faith with a horizon always receding and 
that seems absolutely boundless?” We now can 
see what a loss it would have been to the world if 
Abraham’s mission had been left for Ammon and 
Moab rather than the Hebrew descendants of Isaac 
and Jacob to fulfil. There is no certain explanation 
of the different forms for the names Sarah and 
Abraham, but the author uses the later forms of the 
names to indicate a new stage of God’s revelation of 
his purpose. 

6. The Religious Meaning of Abraham’s Migration. 

If we may judge from Abraham’s life after he 
reached Palestine, it was a religious motive that led 
him to leave the safety and comforts of his home¬ 
land. Wherever he went he built altars and prayed. 
He established a better type of religious life than 
that to which he was accustomed in his youth, and 
the world has felt the influence of the movement 
which he inaugurated. Marcus Dods says of him: 
“With Abraham there opens a new chapter in the 
history of the race; a chapter of the profoundest 
significance. The consequences of Abraham’s move¬ 
ments and beliefs have been limitless and enduring. 
All succeeding time has been influenced by him.” 

It may not be too much to say that Abraham’s 
family had the same motive that inspired the Pil¬ 
grim Fathers, who left their native land to found 



SKETCHES FROM THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM 39 


communities where men could worship God under 
better conditions than obtained in the old world. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Contrast Genesis 12 to 50 with Genesis I to II with refer¬ 
ence to the contents and the literary form. 

Tell the story of Abraham’s migration together with a brief 
description of his home in Ur. 

Compare “God’s whisper” in Kipling’s The Explorer with 
Abraham’s call in Genesis 12. 

Tell the story of Lot’s choice of the best lands, according 
to Genesis 13, and bring out by your way of telling it 
the motive of the author. 

Discuss the ethical value of the struggle for life in a 
country like the uplands of Palestine and the highlands 
of Scotland. 

What was the origin of the Ishmaelites? Was Abraham 
religious? 


Chapter VI 

TWO CHAPTERS FROM THE LIFE OF ISAAC 

The Offering of Isaac. Genesis 22:1-19. 

An Oriental Courtship. Genesis 24. 

I. Introduction. The Authorship and Certain Pecu¬ 
liarities of the Oriental Setting of these Stories. 

The name of the author who wrote the remarkable 
story of the rescue of Isaac has been lost, but he is 
known as the Elohist because he preferred the name 
Elohim for God, and his designation in modern 
books is E. He wrote in Ephraim or Northern 
Israel after Elijah had done his great work, and 
perhaps during the time of the activity of the pro¬ 
phet Amos, about 750 B. C. He was greatly influ¬ 
enced by the prophets, toward higher ethical and 
religious ideals than his predecessor, the historian 

J, had shown. For example, J had written a hun¬ 
dred years earlier the statement that Abraham had 
told a lie (Genesis 12:13-18). E explained that 
Abraham had not really lied because Sarah was 
indeed his sister, the daughter of Abraham’s father, 
though not of his mother (Genesis 20:12). 

So also in the story of the Offering of Isaac in 
Genesis 22 the author E has for his main purpose 
the correcting of a great error. The sacrifice of 
human beings was a familiar form of religious wor¬ 
ship amongst the neighbors of Israel (See 2 Kings 
3:27). Even the Hebrews practised it to some 
extent (Judges 11:39;2 Kings 16:3). Abraham evi- 

40 


TWO CHAPTERS FROM THE LIFE OF ISAAC 41 

dently came to believe it to be his duty to sacrifice 
Isaac, but E states. (Gen. 22, 11) that a voice from 
heaven forbad it. 

The author of the courtship of Rebekah was J, 
whose characteristics were discussed in Chapter 2. 
Bewer says of him: “He is an acknowledged master 
of story-tellers. His, literary art is exquisite. Fresh, 
lifelike, concrete, and graphic, the persons are 
sketched with the sureness of a great artist, the 
stories move swiftly and are full of interest. No 
wonder that they have delighted the readers of 
more than two milleniums.” 

This story of an oriental courtship has for its 
setting well-known customs of the nomads of the 
desert: the seeking of a wife from a kindred tribe; 
the confidence reposed in an old slave; and the 
negotiations that led up to marriage. He who 
studies these stories is not only adding to his relig¬ 
ious and literary culture, but is also making him¬ 
self at home in the ancient world, in other words, 
becoming a citizen of the world. 

2. The Story of the Offering of Isaac. 

The dramatic skill of the writer appears in the 
swiftness of movement and in the increasing inter¬ 
est of each successive scene. Tell the story with 
the following outline as a guide: 

The startling command to Abraham, vv. 1, 2. 

The solemn journey to Mt. Moriah, vv. 3, 4. 

Preparations for the sacrifice of Isaac, vv. 5-10. 

The voice from heaven, w. 11-14. 

The reward of Abraham’s obedience, vv. 15-19. 

Study the narrative for examples of pathos, sim¬ 
plicity, swiftness of movement, the lifelike sketch¬ 
ing of persons, and the element of surprise. 


42 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


Greek literature has a parallel to this story in the 
offering of Iphigenia by Agamemnon. To propiti¬ 
ate the angry goddess Artemis, who had becalmed 
the Greek fleet, Agamemnon was about to sacrifice 
his beautiful daughter Iphigenia, when the goddess 
unexpectedly substituted a doe as an acceptable 
offering. 

3. An Oriental Courtship. 

An attractive method of presenting this story is 
to arrange it in seven scenes as follows. 

Scene 1 

The Servant’s Oath, Gen. 24:1-10 

Place: Abraham’s tent in Hebron. 

Characters: Abraham, aged and ill, lying upon a 
couch of skins; the trusted servant, kneeling before 
Abraham; several attendants, outside the tent door. 

Abraham says: Swear that you will not take a 
wife for Isaac from the Canaanites, but from my 
own kindred in Haran. 

Servant: What if the maiden will not return with 
me to this land? 

Abraham: Then you are free from the oath. But 
God will send his angel before you. 

(The servant sets forth with a caravan of ten 
camels and attendant slaves to the valley of the 
Euphrates.) 


Scene 2 

The Meeting with Rebekah, 11-28 

Place: The ancient well of Nahor, near the old 
stone house of Laban, brother of Rebekah. 


TWO CHAPTERS FROM THE LIFE OF ISAAC 43 

Characters: The trusted servant, standing be¬ 
side his kneeling camels; Rebekah, the beautiful 
young sister of Laban. 

The servant speaks: Let me, I pray thee, drink 
a little water from the pitcher. 

Rebekah: Drink, my lord. For the camels also 
I will draw water from the well. 

Servant: (presents Rebekah with gold earrings 
and bracelets) Whose daughter are you? Is there 
room in your father’s house for us to lodge tonight? 

Rebekah: I am of the family of Nahor. We 
have both straw and provender enough, and room 
to lodge in. 


Scene 3 

Oriental Hospitality, 29-33 

Place: The homestead of Nahor. 

Characters: Laban, the servant, and Rebekah. 

Laban: Come in, thou blessed of the Lord; 
wherefore standest thou without? For I have pre¬ 
pared the house, and room for the camels. (Laban 
then pours water on the feet of his guest, and sets 
food before him.) 

Servant: I will not eat, until I have told mine 
errand. 


Scene 4 

Marriage Negotiations, 34-54 

Place: Dining room of the house. 

Characters: The same as in Scene 3. 

Servant: My master made me swear, saying, 


44 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


thou shalt go unto my father’s house and to my 
kindred, and take a wife for my son. I covenanted 
with Jehovah that he should show me the maiden 
by the sign that she should give both me and my 
camels water at the well. And before I had done 
speaking in my heart behold Rebekah came. And 
now, if you will give the maiden in marriage to my 
master’s son, tell me. 

Laban: The thing proceedeth from the Lord. 
Behold Rebekah is before thee; take her and go. 
(The dowry gifts are then presented, and a feast is 
held.) 


Scene 5 

The Journey to Palestine, 55-61 

Place: Caravan road from Haran to Hebron. 

Characters: Mother of Rebekah, the trusted 
servant and Rebekah. 

Rebekah’s mother: Let Rebekah stay with us a 
few days,; after that she may go. 

Servant: Make no delay; my master is old and 
infirm; he may not live to see the bride. 

The mother: We will ask Rebekah, and let her 
decide. (To Rebekah) Wilt thou go with this 
man? 

Rebekah : I will go. 

The family: (Gathered around for the farewell) 
Blessed be thou, Rebekah, and be thou the mother of 
thousands of ten thousands, and let thy seed possess 
the gate of those which hate them. (Rebekah and 
her nurse mount the camels and start with the 
trusted servant on the long journey.) 


TWO CHAPTERS FROM THE LIFE OF ISAAC 45 

Scene 6 

Meeting of the Betrothed, 62-66 

Place: A field at Beer-lahai-roi. (Abraham died 
in the absence of the servant, and Isaac had moved 
to the place named.) 

Characters: Isaac, Rebekah and other members 
of the caravan. 

Rebekah: (Seeing a man dressed like a person 
of importance walking toward them, she alighted 
from the camel, thinking it probable that it was her 
future husband.) What man is this that walketh in 
the field to meet us? 

The servant: It is my master Isaac. (Rebekah 
puts on her veil, for Isaac must not see her face, 
according to the custom of good society, until they 
are man and wife.) 


Scene 7 

Place: The tent of Isaac’s mother 

Characters: Rebekah, Isaac, and the trusted 
servant. 

(The servant reports to Isaac the success of his 
mission.) 

The servant: God has prospered me according 
to the prayer of thy father Abraham. 

Isaac: Blessed be the Lord who has sent to me 
Rebekah, one of our own kindred. 

(Isaac takes. Rebekah to the tent that had 
belonged to Sarah, and she became his wife, and he 
was comforted after his father’s death.) 


46 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


Who can see the green earth any more 
As she was by the sources of time? 

Who thinks as they thought, 

The tribes who then roamed on her breast, 
Her vigorous primitive sons? 

What girl 

Now reads in her bosom as clear 
As Rebekah read when she sate 
At eve by the palm-shaded well? 

Who guards in her breast 
As deep, as pellucid a spring 
Of feeling, as tranquil, as sure? 

—Matthew Arnold. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Discuss and explain the difference in moral standards be¬ 
tween the biblical authors J and E. 

Name three or four customs, good and bad, that form the 
background of the two stories in this lesson. 

Assign Genesis 22 in advance to some member of the class, 
asking that the story be told next time as vividly as 
possible. 

Write in your notebooks an estimate of Genesis 22 as a 
short story. Name and give an example of each point 
made. 

Explain how a custom that seemed good to one generation, 
like the custom of human sacrifice, becomes a sin to later 
generations. 

Many biblical stories like the Wooing of Rebekah in Genesis 
24 have been dramatized in recent years, and classes have 
put them on the stage in a simple, or more elaborate 
form. It would stimulate interest in the study of the 
Bible if that should be done more frequently. This 
story of Rebekah has been treated thus in this chapter in 
order to suggest how easily it may be done. Let the 
class take the parts and read the scenes during class hour, 
or let them be presented at a more formal occasion, with 
the parts memorized and the scenes staged. The story 
as here dramatized may be much lengthened if it is 
desired. 

Commit to memory the quotation from Matthew Arnold, 
and tell what criticism of modern girlhood seems to be 
implied. 


Chapter VII 

JAC0P3 : A CHARACTER STUDY, PART 1 

The Birth of the Twins. Genesis 25:19-26. 

Jacob Buys the Birthright. Genesis 25:27-34. 

Bebekah’s Scheme to Steal the Paternal Blessing. Genesis 
27:1-29. 

Esau’s Plea. Genesis 27:30-40. 

Jacob’s Departure for the East. Genesis 27:41-28:9. 

The Vision at Bethel. Genesis 28:10-22. 

1. Introduction. 

The cycles of stories connected with the names of 
Jacob and Joseph fill nearly all the last half of Gene¬ 
sis, more than twenty chapters. They are of so 
great importance to students, of literature and relig¬ 
ion that four chapters of this book have been 
devoted to them, and they should be studied thor¬ 
oughly for three reasons. 

First of all, these characters as they stand pic¬ 
tured in the pages of the Bible are so human and 
lifelike that one meets them in all the great litera¬ 
tures of the world, and they are better known in 
town and hamlet than many a modern statesman. 
To be ignorant of these incidents is to cut off one’s 
self from the appreciation of much fine literature, 
and from an understanding of what is going on in 
the minds of the common people. W. H. Bennett 
writes as follows concerning these characters in the 
New Century Bible : “Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph 
are no mere shadowy visions, but familiar friends, 
more real to many than the statesmen and generals 
of our own day. .. .The Patriarchs appeal to us, in¬ 
terest and help us, because they are types of classes 

47 


48 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


of men; their adventures. .. .still stand as vivid pic¬ 
tures and symbols of crises in human life today. .. . 
There have been many Jacobs, who have, so to speak, 
stumbled into the Divine Presence, when their only 
thought was of headlong flight from the conse¬ 
quences of weakness, folly, and sin; many Josephs, 
too, who have found in humiliating ruin the ap¬ 
pointed pathway to honourable service. .. .It is the 
human, the representative character of these nar¬ 
ratives that has preserved them, and procured for 
them a place in Scripture.” 

Second, these narratives should be studied as pure 
literature. In many respects they are unsurpassed 
in the writings of the world. Gardiner {The Bible 
as English Literature , pp. 34, 35) says: “All the 
narrative of the Bible shows a combination of two 
sets of qualities: on the one hand it has a simplicity 
and a limpid and vivid clearness which make it ap¬ 
peal to all sorts and conditions of men; on the other 
hand through its whole range it has an under-cur¬ 
rent of strong feeling. . . .For swiftness, for the un¬ 
erring sense of effective detail, these stories are our 
standard in English.” One who reads and rereads 
these narratives may come to appreciate as Ruskm 
and Lincoln did the “grand style” of the Bible, 
and may possibly acquire a better literary style of 
his own. 

In the third place, the moral value of these 
descriptions is very high. The prophetic historians 
J and E knew the value of the story in religious edu¬ 
cation ; and while in these stories there are elements 
that belong to a lower stage of development than 
that to which we have attained, yet they so power¬ 
fully picture the sorrows of sin and the rewards of 


JACOB: A CHARACTER STUDY 49 

virtue that they still hold their place in the field of 
education. 

2. The Lesson Material. 

The six incidents listed at the head of this chap¬ 
ter should be studied both as separate units and as 
a connected series, for each is an interesting story 
in itself, and there is also a logical connection run¬ 
ning through them all. 

One sure method of mastering this material is to 
write a brief paraphrase of each incident, keeping 
in mind all the time the great difference between 
Esau and Jacob. “The first was born, all over like 
a hairy garment, presenting the appearance of being 
rolled up in a fur cloak or the skin of an animal. .. . 
when their son appeared in this guise the parents 
could not but fear that it prognosticated his sensual, 
animal career. So they called him Esau. And so 
did the younger son from the first show his nature, 
catching the heel of his brother, as if he were striv¬ 
ing to be firstborn.” 

An example of what a student might write in his 
notebook as a paraphrase of Genesis 25:27-34 is 
given at this point as a suggestion to be followed in 
treating the other incidents in the life of Jacob. 
While Jacob is stirring a pot of lentil stew over 
the fire, Esau comes wearily in. He has been long 
hours in the open in a vain hunt for game, and he 
is very hungry. Sniffing the tempting soup he 
begs, Let me eat some of that red stew for I am 
faint. But Jacob said, First sell me your birth¬ 
right. Esau replied, I am ready to die of faintness, 
so of what use will the birthright be to me. Swear 
to me, said Jacob, that for this mess of pottage you 


50 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


will sell me the birthright. Esau made the required 
oath, and so sold his privilege as eldest son, and then 
ate his fill of bread and stew, careless of the future. 

3. Explanatory Notes. 

The name Jacob means “heel-holder,” and is in¬ 
terpreted in Gen. 27 :36 to mean one who tries to 
supplant another. 

Esau is a play on the Hebrew word “hairy.” The 
Greek word Esau means profane. 4 4 Esau was a pro¬ 
fane person, an open and bare character, unfenced 
and unhallowed, no guardian angels at the doors.” 

The law of the birthright is given in Deut. 21:15- 
17. By it the oldest son became the head of the 
family and had the largest share of the property. 
A parallel to the biblical incident of the birthright 
is the sale of a birthright in Arabia, in the city of 
Mecca. A descendant of Ishmael sold for a bottle 
of wine the keys to the temple at Mecca, and with 
them guardianship of the temple, which had been 
his by right of birth. 

Two views of Rebekah. 44 A selfish, ambitious, 
woman playing her favorite son with meanest decep¬ 
tion against her older child and against her blind 
and aged husband.” 

She was a bright, forward, far-seeing mother who 
knew that Jacob would be a better head of the 
family and of the tribe in days to come, and took 
what seemed to her the necessary means to bring 
about the desired end. She did wrong and was 
punished for it, but she meant well. 

Genesis 27:36 harmonizes the apparent inconsist¬ 
ency of using two explantions of the way in which 
the younger brother obtained the birthright. The 


JACOB : A CHARACTER STUDY 


51 


two stories originally circulated independently and 
were so interesting that both were preserved when 
Genesis was compiled. 

4. The Religious Meaning of the Vision at Bethel. 

On his lonely way to exile in the east the fugi¬ 
tive stayed over night at Bethel, where the peculiar 
formation of the rocks evidently suggested the 
“ladder” in his dream. He saw a flight of steps 
leading to heaven, and angels ascending and de¬ 
scending, and at the top was God looking down on 
the young man, who was so capable of doing wrong 
and yet so capable of lofty religious visions. None 
so lonely, none so sinful that God cannot be near to 
help. 

‘ 1 The drift of pinions, would we hearken, 

Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors. 

The angels keep their ancient places:— 

Turn but a stone, and start a wing. ” 

Does the fact that the angels first “ascended,” 
according to the story, indicate that the divine help 
is always by our side, and that we need not call aloud 
to Heaven to send down mercy from above? 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Write in your notebooks two or more reasons why a student 
of literature should master the Jacob and Joseph stories. 

Look through the six incidents in the life of Jacob in this 
chapter to see evidences that the authors intentionally 
used these stories for the purposes of moral and religious 
education. 

Write a paraphrase of Esau’s plea in your notebooks. 

State how the six incidents are connected as a part of a 
plot. 

What is your view of Rebekah’s part in the incident of the 
birth-right ? 

If Esau was more affectionate, generous, and forgiving 
than Jacob, why is he not on the whole regarded as the 
better man? 

How were Rebekah and Jacob punished for their sin? 

What is the lesson of Jacob’s ladder? 


Chapter VIII 

JACOB: A CHARACTER STUDY, PART 2 

The meeting of Jacob and Kachel. Genesis 29:1-14. 

Jacob deceived by Laban. Genesis 29:15-30. 

Laban deceived by Jacob. Genesis 30:25-43. 

The flight from Haran. Genesis 31:1-21. 

The truce at Mizpah. Genesis 31:22-55. 

The struggle at the Jabbok. Genesis 32:3-32. 

Jacob and Esau reconciled. Genesis 33:1-17. 

1. The Change of Scene in Jacob’s Life. 

Jacob spent his early years in the vicinity of 
Hebron in the south of Palestine. His mother, 
doubtless, had often told him of her old home in 
Haran in Mesopotamia, and perhaps had described 
the old family well where she had offered hospitali¬ 
ty to the trusted servant of Abraham, and had 
watered his camels. It was this well and the old 
stone house on the hill above, where his mother had 
lived as a girl, that made Haran seem a friendly 
shelter after his long journey from the South. 

Here he finds Rachel, here Joseph is born, and here 
also he gains wealth. After a period of twenty 
years or so he becomes dissatisfied with Laban’s 
treatment of him and decides to return to Palestine. 
After many strange experiences he returns and is 
reconciled with Esau. 

2. The Lesson Material. 

The task of learning to tell these stories will not 
seem difficult to those who adopt the following plan: 

(1) Find the chief point of interest in each of the 

52 


JACOB: A CHARACTER STUDY 53 

seven incidents. In the first, it is perhaps the love- 
scene between Rachel and Jacob. In the second, 
it is the curious oriental custom of marriage. In 
the third, it might he Jacob’s, success in outwitting 
the shrewd and selfish Laban. may enjoy 

Jacob’s victory, although we cannot approve of 
his methods. In the fourth the sudden flight of 
Jacob with all his possessions after twenty years of 
work on Laban’s estate, without saying anything 
about it to Laban, awakens, the curiosity of the 
reader. The scene at Mizpah gave rise to the mod¬ 
ern “Mizpah Benediction,” but the scene itself was 
anything but devotional. The struggle at the Jab- 
bok is the most dramatic of the incidents, because of 
the all-night struggle with the angel; and the recon¬ 
ciliation between the brothers after twenty years 
of absence has its own appeal to the reader. 

(2) The teacher and the class, should together 
work out a brief analysis of each of the stories, and 
the analysis should be written in the notebooks for 
later use. The usefulness of the analysis will be in¬ 
creased if it is brief and suggestive of the pictures 
in the story. The following example may be help¬ 
ful. The first narrative, 29 :1-14, naturally divides 
itself into the following sections: 

The wayworn traveller reaches the historic well and sees 
flocks lying around it, 1-3. 

His conversation with the shepherds, 4-9. 

Love at first sight, 10-12. 

Jacob made welcome in the house of Laban, 13, 14. 

(3) Find a good or bad characteristic of Jacob 
in each of the seven incidents. 

3. The problem of Jacob’s character. 

Hutchins, in his 'Religious Experience of Israel , is 


54 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


too critical of Jacob. He describes him as utterly 
unscrupulous as a son; as a brother, he takes advan¬ 
tage of the weakness of Esau and is utterly selfish; 
as an employee, he is no more attractive, being very 
crafty and skilful in cheating. This author is also 
skeptical regarding the sincerity of Jacob in reli- 
ion. He says of him, frightened by Esau’s ap¬ 
proach, “The mean little supplanter cannot cheat 
God. No trick will serve him now.” 

This estimate of Jacob fails to take into consid¬ 
eration that his mother was responsible for his early 
disloyalty to his father and brother. History and 
the New Testament have placed a higher value on 
Jacob’s life. The New Testament gives him a place 
among the heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11, and his 
place in history as the father of the twelve tribes of 
Israel is secure. There must be elements, then, in 
his character worthy of imitation. He denied him¬ 
self immediate pleasures for the sake of a larger 
good in the future ;‘he early had a religious experi¬ 
ence which showed a nature capable of lofty ideals; 
his love for Rachel and faithfulness to her reveal a 
good heart; his patience and persistence were wor¬ 
thy of the reward which he obtained. 

It is only fair to remember that Jacob lived near¬ 
ly four thousand years ago and that he should be 
judged by the standards of his own time. His sharp 
bargain with Laban, his failure to bid him good-bye 
after twenty years of service with him, and many 
other faults and sins in his life were much more 
common at that time than now. Jacob’s deep relig¬ 
ious experience at the Jabbok and his reconciliation 
with Esau show him to have had real depth of char¬ 
acter. 


JACOB: A CHARACTER STUDY 


55 


It should not be a matter of surprise that there are 
two natures in a man like Jacob. There is a Doctor 
Jekyl and Mr. Hyde in almost every person, and 
the evil in us is always striving for supremacy over 
the good. It is probable that if we had insight 
enough we should see Jacobs all around us today. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Trace on a map of Western Asia the journeys of Jacob as 
a background for the understanding of the incidents of 
his life. 

Write in your notebooks a brief analysis of each of the 
seven incidents, and be prepared to tell the incident when 
the title is mentioned. 

It would be well to arrange at a previous session of the 
class for a debate on the character of Jacob. One mem¬ 
ber of the class should be assigned to the task of defend¬ 
ing Jacob’s character, while another assails it. 


Chapter IX 

THE BIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH, PART 1 

The egotistical boy in Hebron. Genesis 37:1-11. 

Joseph in the pit at Dothan. Genesis 37:12-24. 

Joseph sold as a slave. Genesis 37:25-36. 

Rapid promotion in Potiphar’s service. Genesis 39:1-6. 
Resists temptation and is thrown into prison. Genesis 
39:7-20. 

An optimist in prison. Genesis 39:21-40:23. 

Excels the magicians of Egypt. Genesis 41:1-36. 

Made prime minister. Genesis 41:37-57. 

Forgives his brothers. Genesis chs. 42-44. 

Loyal to his family. Genesis chs. 45-47. 

1. Introduction. More Biography and Less Fic¬ 
tion. 

In a day when fiction, and to a large extent fic¬ 
tion not worthy to read, fills our libraries, we need 
to be reminded that life’s best lessons come from 
biography. 

“ Lives of great men all remind us 
We can make our lives sublime.” 

Hagedorn’s Life of Roosevelt and Palmer’s Life 
of Alice Freeman Palmer are examples of fascinat¬ 
ing books that have stirred the ambition of many a 
boy and girl. When the advice of parents and 
teachers falls on dull ears, a book like Mary Antin’s 
Promised Land or Franklin’s Autobiography may 
awaken youth to the great interests of life. 

It has been said that the four greatest biographies 
in English are Boswell’s Life of Johnson , Lockhart’s 
Life of Scott , Trevelyan’s Life of Macaulay , and 

Franklin’s Autobiography. While the biography of 

56 


THE BIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH 57 

Joseph in Genesis is very brief, yet it is “unequalled 
in any literature sacred or profane, in ancient or 
modern times, for its simplicity, its pathos, its dra¬ 
matic power, and its sustained interest.’’ When 
you add to that the fact that Joseph is the ideal char¬ 
acter of the Old Testament, a dreamer who made 
his dreams come true, with an experience rich m 
exploits,, you have material of the greatest value in 
religious education. 

2. The Egyptian Background. 

The scene of the story in ancient Egypt is strange 
and exciting enough to be worthy of a place 
in The Arabian Nights. The events of Joseph’s 
life fall in that period of revolution when the 
Hyksos or the Shepherd tribes invaded Egypt 
and took possession of the government. The beau¬ 
tiful palaces and temples were taken over from the 
proud rulers, of the Nile valley by these Asiatics 
who were akin to Joseph. This explains how he 
could become prime minister and marry the 
daughter of the high priest. Such a book as the 
Spell of Egypt by Robert Hichens, with its pictures 
and vivid descriptions, is helpful to the student as 
he tries to go back in imagination to that ancient 
time. Whatever one may think concerning the ver¬ 
bal accuracy of the incident, the fact remains that 
the biblical account of Joseph’s, career admirably 
fits into the conditions in Egypt in those days. For 
example, the description of Joseph’s experience in 
Potiphar’s house is true to the life of the times as 
is proven by a parallel Egyptian story entitled, 
“The Tale of the Two Brothers.” 


58 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


3. A Rapid Survey of the Career of Joseph. 

The best approach to this subject is made by a 
rapid reading of the whole story by the outline at 
the head of this chapter. We first see a boy about 
seventeen years old playing among his father’s tents 
in Hebron. He is a dreamer and a family favorite, 
and consequently becomes very unpopular with his 
brothers. No doubt he had been so sheltered from 
the hard experiences of life that he had become 
rather priggish. 

The author next shows how the self-conceit was 
taken out of him by a series of remarkable experi¬ 
ences. He is sent sixty miles from home on an er¬ 
rand to his brothers in Dothan. They throw him 
into a dry well and leave him to die. But one of 
the brothers, relenting, pulls him out and sells him 
as a slave to a caravan of traders. After a hard trip 
of several hundred miles on foot to the Nile delta, 
he is sold to become a servant in Potiphar’s house. 
Before long, through no fault of his own, he is 
thrown into prison. The prison is the turning point 
in his career. From that he goes out to become 
prime minister of one of the greatest nations on 
earth, rides in a golden chariot, marries the daugh¬ 
ter of the high priest of the realm, and becomes the 
savior of his people. 

»• 

4. Joseph’s Religion. 

Joseph’s spotless personal life and noble career 
were due, according to the story, to a lofty faith in 
God. Hutchins, in his The Religious Experience 
of Israel has said: “A man’s whole life is deter¬ 
mined by the God he worships. Joseph’s life is 


THE BIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH 


59 


pictured as dominated by a holy, unescapable God. 
Far from home, in the land of alien deities, whom 
his contemporaries certainly regarded as alive and 
powerful; a slave, persumably bereft of his God 
who ruled alone in Canaan; this man cries: ‘How 
can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?’ 
In prison, he realizes that his God is with him. In 
his dream-telling, he thinks of God as revealer. ‘Do 
not interpretations belong to God?. .. .God will give 
Pharaoh an answer of peace.’ Joseph’s God, more¬ 
over, is master of events. In a very fine passage 
we hear Joseph say to his brothers: ‘As for you, ye 
meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, 
to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much peo¬ 
ple alive.’ Gen. 50:20. Ever his God stands ‘with¬ 
in the shadow, keeping watch above his own.’ ” 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Review by the help of Chapter I the different kinds of 
literature in the Old Testament. 

Compare the biography of Joseph from the point of view of 
its literary form and lofty thought with any modern 
book of biography. 

In what period in Egyptian history does Joseph's life fall? 

The following evidences that the story of Joseph is true to 
life have been found: An inscription of seven years of 
famine on a rock in Egypt, a letter written in Egypt 
stating that a man Joseph was ruler, and a tablet refer¬ 
ring to an Asiatic who had control of the stores of corn 
in Egypt. Name at least two other ways in which the 
biblical story fits into the historical background. 

Tell the whole story of Joseph in outline. 

What element in his character contributed most to his 
success? 

Name two evidences that Joseph was a religious man. 


Chapter X 

THE BIOGRAPHY OP JOSEPH, PART 2 

Pharaoh’s dream. Genesis 41:1-36. 

The ten brothers before the governor. Genesis 42:1-26. 

The hidden cup. Genesis 44:1-17. 

Judah’s plea. Genesis 44:18-34. 

Joseph reveals his identity. Genesis 45:1-15. 

Joseph forgives his brothers. Genesis 50:14-21. 

1. Some Literary Values of this Biography. 

As we turn from the general outline of the story 
of Joseph, which occupied our attention in the last 
chapter, to a study of particular features of the nar¬ 
rative, exchanging the telescope for the microscope, 
we have an experience comparable to that of the 
student of forestry when he puts a cross section of 
a tree under the microscope. The forest in general 
was interesting, but the section of wood minutely 
studied reveals rare and unexpected wonders of 
form and color. So the particular scenes in the life 
of Joseph when carefully studied, show remarkable 
beauty of form and thought. 

Hutchins declares that “the vividness of the por¬ 
traiture can scarcely be matched in literature.’’ 
William Lyon Phelps says of one of these little 
scenes (Judah’s plea), “There is no recognition 
scene in Greek drama finer than this.” Julius A. 
Bewer describes the extraordinarily fine grouping 
of the incidents into a unified picture, and asserts 
that the whole “is a well-knit novel, finely con¬ 
ceived and worked out.” George Matheson, in his 

60 


THE BIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH 


61 


Representative Men of t)i£ Bible, writes concerning 
the relation of the parts to the whole: “Those who 
are conversant with music tell ns that each of 
Chopin’s Preludes has three parts, which embody a 
distinct sequence. In the first, the melody is free 
and unrestrained. In the second, it seems to move 
through tangled places—to be impeded in its way by 
the intervention of resisting elements. But in the 
third, the melody comes out into the open once more; 
the tangles vanish, the impediments are removed, and 
the notes of the first part reappear in a new connec¬ 
tion and with a fresh power. Now, this is precisely 
the music which I find in the life of Joseph.” 

2. Suggestions for the Study of a Particular Scene. 

The story of Joseph “has woven itself into the 
fabric of the thought and literature of the world” 
so completely that one can hardly afford to be ig¬ 
norant of any of the incidents in the biblical narra¬ 
tive. But intimate knowledge of such a work of 
literary art comes only from an intensive study of 
its parts. For example, one will be rewarded, if 
he gives hours to the study of the ten brothers in the 
presence of the governor. Genesis 42 :l-26. 

First, one should try to visualize the setting of 
the incident. As the humble and plainly-dressed 
shepherds reach the capital of Egypt, they are im¬ 
pressed by the elaborate stone buildings that sur¬ 
round the beautiful palace of the Pharaoh, for the 
treasury department of the government of Egypt 
in its most prosperous days had a host of clerks 
and many spacious rooms. When the shepherds are 
finally admitted to the presence of the governor, 
whom they do not recognize as their own brother. 


62 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


they bow their faces to the earth. The governor 
makes himself strange to them and speaks roughly. 
He throws them into prison for three days, then 
calls them back to the office and orders them to 
bring their youngest brother to him. At this their 
consciences trouble them and, thinking that Joseph 
cannot understand their language for he has always 
spoken to them through an interpreter, they speak 
to one another about their sin against Joseph, whom 
they think dead. When Joseph hears this, he can 
restrain himself no longer, but goes away by himself 
and weeps. 

Again, consider the simplicity and earnestness of 
the style. The words are short, and there is not 
an involved sentence. There is scarcely an adjec¬ 
tive in the whole narrative, and certainly no rhet¬ 
orical additions. The action moves rapidly toward 
the end, and the words and phrases are so chosen 
that a feeling of sincerity and earnestness fills the 
mind of the reader. 

The art of the writer is seen, also, in the figures 
of speech which he employs. In this incident the 
element of suspense is most important, for Joseph 
with difficulty conceals his emotions and his identi¬ 
ty is likely to be discovered at any time. By the 
use of the dialogue, also, the effect of the descrip¬ 
tion is heightened. A further device is seen in the 
introduction of numerous crises with dramatic ac¬ 
tion, like the abrupt departure of Joseph that he 
may shed tears in private. 

Judah’s plea is said to contain some of the finest 
English in our language. One curious feature of it 
is the use of many monosyllabic words. It is very 
strong, also, in the element of pathos. But time 


THE BIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH 


63 


would fail us if we should undertake to treat fully 
all the incidents. 

3. Joseph’s Philosophy of Life. 

This story is cheerful because it has a good end, 
but its chief attraction is not that it “culminates 
in brightness, but that the brightness is found to 
have been produced by the actual clouds of the 
narrative. This is, I think, a point in which the 
portrait of Joseph is unique among Old Testa¬ 
ment figures. You will find any number of narra¬ 
tives that wind up with the prosperity of their 
heroes; but I cannot at present recall another in 
which the trial is found to be a part of the prosperity. 
Noah emerges from the flood into the sunshine; but 
the flood remains a calamity still. Daniel is saved 
from the lions; but he is saved by the allaying of 
their fury. Job gets back his possessions; but he 
gets them back as a reversal of his adverse circum¬ 
stances. The case of Joseph is very different. His 
peculiarity is not that he rises to a pinnacle of earthly 
splendour; most of the Old Testament figures do that. 
It is that his splendour has come out of his dungeon. 
We are made to see, to feel, that he would never have 
been on the pinnacle at all if it had not been for his 
misfortunes in the valley, that his sunshine has come 
from his suffering, that the avenue of shade has led 
him to the palace of light,” (Matheson) Joseph was 
an optimist. 

His philosophy of life involved a lofty view of God. 
When we recall that this narrative was written not 
later than 700 years before Christ, we are amazed 
that it grasps a conception of God that is internation¬ 
al and ethical (39:9; 50:20), for other peoples still 


64 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


believed in petty national deities with low standards 
of moral life. 

The scene in which Joseph as a high official in the 
Egyptian empire forgives his lowly brothers who had 
been so cruel to him is hardly to be matched in the 
ancient world. And, as a matter of fact, in the 
modern world such forgiving love is rare. This alone 
suffices to give the biography of Joseph great dis¬ 
tinction. And the reason which he gives for making 
love supreme in life compels us to hold Joseph in 
very high esteem because he associates his personal 
attitude with the providence of God in history, “You 
meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, 
to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people 
alive. ” (50:20) 

Joseph’s preparation to meet the unexpected op¬ 
portunities of life suggests the duty of keeping the 
“muscles trained.” Who would have thought that 
the Hebrew boy who washed the front steps of Poti- 
phar’s palace, and served as a “trusty” in an Egyp¬ 
tian prison, would become prime minister of one of 
the two greatest nations on earth and the saviour of 
his race? So, in our philosophy of life, we must not 
underestimate the little things, remembering Lowell’s 
advice: 

“In life’s small things be resolute and great, 

To keep thy muscles trained; know’st thou when Fate 

Thy measure takes? or when she’ll say to thee, 

‘I find thee worthy, do this thing for me?’ ” 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Assign in advance a scene in the life of Joseph to each 
student to be studied according to the method suggested 
in Point 2. 


THE BIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH 


65 


Write in your notebooks a list of all the scenes in the life 
of Joseph from Genesis 37 to the end, noting the refer¬ 
ences to the text. 

Quote Professors Phelps and Bewer on the literary value 
of the descriptions of the incidents in the life of Joseph. 

What comparison from the realm of music did Mr. Mathe- 
son make? 

Name three or more elements in Joseph’s philosophy of life. 


Part 3 

LITERARY SELECTIONS WITH THE 
BEGINNINGS OF THE NATIONAL HISTORY 
FOR A BACKGROUND 


Chapter XI 

THE ROMANCE OF MOSES’ MISSION 

Kescue and adoption of the babe. Exodus 2:1-10. 

His sacrifice for his people. Exodus 2:11-15. 

The influence of the Midian experiences. Exodus 2:16-22. 

The vision of the burning bush. Exodus 2:22-3:10. 

Moses feels unequal to the task. Exodus 3:10-16. 

Aaron’s part in the great mission. Exodus 4:10-16. 

Dialogue between Moses and the Pharaoh. Exodus 5:1-14. 

1. Parallels to the Story of Moses. 

Many nations have glorified their founders in 
song and story. The Babylonians told a famous 
story concerning Sargon, the Persians concerning 
the Elder Cyrus, and the Romans concerning Rom¬ 
ulus and Remus. According to Herodotus, the El¬ 
der Cyrus was ordered by the king of the Medes to 
be exposed and left to die, but the herdsman who 
should have carried out the king’s orders preserved 
the child’s life and brought him up as his son. 
Later, Cyrus became king and deposed the cruel 
tyrant. 

The Babylonian story is a closer parallel to the 
story of Moses. It runs as follows: 

I am Sargon, the mighty king, the king of Akkad. My 
mother was of lowly birth; my father I knew not, but my 

66 



THE ROMANCE OF MOSES ’ MISSION 


67 


father’s brother dwelt in the mountains. The city of 
Azupiranu, on the shore of - the Euphrates, was my home, 
My lowly mother conceived me; in secret she gave me 
birth; she placed me in a basket of reeds and sealed its 
cover with bitumen; she laid me in the river, but the 
river did not drown me. The river bore me along; it 
carried me to Akki the irrigator. Akki the irrigator 
rescued me; Akki the irrigator adopted me as his own 
son; Akki the irrigator made me his gardener, and the 

goddess Ishtar favored me. Four years I ruled 

the country. 

The romance of Moses surpasses all these literary 
parallels both in the historical importance of the 
character and the literary form of the narrative. 

2. The New Era in History and Literature. 

In studying the evolution of any great literature 
we need to keep in mind the experiences of the 
people whose life the literature describes. We have 
now reached the third stage of Old Testament liter¬ 
ature. The first stage had for its background the 
primitive history before Abraham; the second stage 
was the patriarchal period and had the lives of Abra¬ 
ham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph for a background. 
From neither of these first two stages has any writ¬ 
ten document been handed down to us. It is prac¬ 
tically certain that such fascinating stories as The 
Fall of Man, The Flood, Jacob and Esau, and Joseph 
floated down from the past in the form of oral trad¬ 
itions and were first put into writing after the time 
of David. 

The third stage brings us nearer to the region of 
authentic history. It covers the life of Israel from 
Moses to the entrance into the Promised Land, in 
round numbers from 1220 to 1160 B. C. Many gen¬ 
erations have passed away since Joseph was prime 



68 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


minister of Egypt. A new king has come to the 
Egyptian throne and Joseph has been forgotten. 
The foreign shepherd or Hyksos kings, who wel¬ 
comed the Israelites to Egypt, have been driven 
from the country. Ramses II (1292-1225, B. C.) 
has come to the throne and is oppressing the 
Hebrews. It was he who commanded that the baby 
boys of the Israelites be drowned in the river, who 
oppressed the Israelites by forcing them to labor as 
slaves, and probably it was he who suffered from 
the plagues that Moses and Aaron brought on the 
country. He died in 1220 B. C. and his body was 
so carefully embalmed and buried in a tomb at 
Deir el-Bahri that, when in 1881 A. D. the tomb was 
opened and the winding cloths cut away from the 
body, it was found to be perfectly preserved. 
“There in a secret place, beneath a rocky cliff in 
upper Egypt, safe from the ancient grave robbers 
and far from the tomb built for him, he had 
been hiding all these thousands of years.” (See 
Banks —The Bible and the Spade, pp. 68-71) 

The records of these events in Egypt and of the 
adventures of the Hebrews from the time of their 
escape from bondage until they reached the land 
of Moab were written up by three Hebrew histori¬ 
ans whom for convenience we have learned to call 
J, E, and P. The whole world of scholarship has 
adopted these terms and students should become 
familiar with them early in their course of study. 
J stands for the Jehovist or Jahwist, a writer in 
Judah, about 850 B. C., who prefers the name Jeho¬ 
vah, when speaking of the Deity, and is the most 
vivid and picturesque of all the Hebrew historians; 
E stands for the Elohist, a writer in northern Israel, 


THE ROMANCE OF MOSES* MISSION 69 

about 750 B. C., who prefers the term ’E lohim (God) 
for the Deity, and is less brilliant in style than J, 
and gives prominence to places in northern Israel; 
P stands for the priestly writer, about 500 B. C., 
who is chiefly interested in the Temple and the religi¬ 
ous ceremonies of the people. 

How many writings of Moses these authors found 
to their hand we have no means of knowing. That 
Moses did not write the account of his own death is 
evident, although the Jews at a later day did not 
hesitate to give him credit even for that. But the 
differences in style and the apparent contradiction in 
thought in many parts of the Pentateuch prevent our 
accepting the theory that Moses wrote the first five 
books of the Bible. J, E, and P may have found 
lists of places made by Moses, and perhaps some laws 
such as we find in Exodus 34, and other written 
memorials of the distant past. They, each in his 
own way, wrote up the whole history of Israel to 
their own time. In later years these three histories 
were combined to form our present early books of 
the Bible. This explains the two accounts of crea¬ 
tion, the two accounts of the flood, and many dupli¬ 
cates and inconsistencies in the narrative. 

3. Seven Episodes in the Career of Moses. 

These episodes are among the best known stories 
of the Bible, and need no comment and almost no 
explanation. The most enjoyable way of studying 
them is as follows: Prepare a brief statement of the 
setting of each episode, somewhat as a public reader 
outlines the circumstances of the story which he is 
going to tell. The material for this is to be found in 
Exodus in each case preceding the episode. Then, 


70 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


with a clear outline of the incident in mind, describe 
the episode as vividly as possible. In the third place, 
show how romantic the whole life of Moses was by 
connecting the episode you have studied with the 
other adventures in his life. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Discuss some likenesses and differences between the story 
of Moses’ youth and the parallels in other nations. 

Name the first three stages in the evolution of Old Testa¬ 
ment literature. 

How does the third stage differ from the two preceding? 

What leading historical facts in Egypt and Israel furnish 
the background for the literature of the third stage? 

Name the three historians of the Hebrews upon whom we 
depend for our knowledge of this period. 

Give the date and one characteristic of each of these three 
historians. 

Since the work of these three historians is no longer in 
existence, but has been combined into one book, how do 
we know that there were originally three separate his¬ 
tories? 

Write in your notebooks in your own words one of the 
episodes in the career of Moses, prefixing the appropriate 
historical setting, and adding the connection of the 
episode with the rest of the life of Moses. 

Make a statement in your notebooks concerning the great¬ 
ness of Moses giving at least four reasons for regarding 
him as one of the greatest men that ever lived. 


Chapter XII 

THE BALLAD OF THE RED SEA 


The prose setting. Exodus 11:4-10; 12:29-36. 

The ballad. Exodus 15:1-18. 

1. Introduction. 

The Bible passages which we have studied thus 
far have been in prose form. This chapter deals 
with a poem and reminds us that we are dealing 
with a varied literature. Henry Van Dyke in his 
Companionable Books says: “The true lover of 
the Bible has an interest in all the elements of its 
life, as an immortal book. He wishes to discern, 
and rightly to appreciate the method of its history, 
the spirit of its philosophy, the significance of its 
fiction, the power of its eloquence, and the charm 

of its poetry.As the worshipper in the Temple 

would observe the art and structure of the carven 
beams of cedar and the lily-work on the tops of the 
pillars, the more attentively because they beautified 
the house of his God, so the man who has a religious 
faith in the Bible will study more easily and care¬ 
fully the literary forms of the book in which the 
Holy Spirit speaks forever. ” 

The dividing line between poetry and prose in the 
Bible is in some cases very difficult to distinguish, 
but in the poem we study in this chapter the differ¬ 
ence is very marked. This gives the student a good 
opportunity for learning several important facts 

about Hebrew poetry. The characteristic feature of 

71 



72 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


all Hebrew poetry is called parallelism. The two 
lines that form a couplet, which is the unit of 
Hebrew poetry, have a symmetry of thought, ex¬ 
pressed usually in one of three forms: synonymous, 
progressive, and antithetic. All three of these kinds 
of parallelism are illustrated in Psalm 1. Verse 5 
is synonymous,— 

Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, 
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. 

Verse 2 is progressive,— 

But his delight is in the law of Jehovah; 

And on His law doth he meditate, day and night. 

Verse 6 is antithetic,— 

For Jehovah knoweth the way of the righteous; 

But the way of the wicked shall perish. 

Other marks of the poetic form may be noted 
briefly. There is a peculiar system of accents or 
stresses of the voice which produce a rhythmical 
effect when the line is read aloud. The Hebrews 
made little or nothing of rhyme or meter but de¬ 
pended upon rhythm for poetic effects. One other 
prominent characteristic is the use of verbal images. 
An example of that is found in verse 8,— 

And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were piled up, 
The floods stood upright as a heap. 

2. The Prose Setting. 

The story of the ten plagues including the death 
of the first-born furnishes the historical background 
of the ballad. From ancient times Egypt had been 
subject to plagues of insects and pestilences, owing 
to the unsanitary climate and the dense population. 
At times the Nile is colored with vegetable matter 


THE BALLAD OF THE RED SEA 


73 


so that the water looks like blood. There are 
plagues of insects which make life almost unbear¬ 
able for man and beast. Historical records and the 
biblical stories make it plain that the series of 
plagues frightened the Egyptians into letting the 
Hebrews go. Whatever may be said concerning the 
historical accuracy of the descriptions, this much 
is certainly true, that the Bible writers forcibly ex¬ 
pressed the truth that God helped the Hebrews and 
punished the Egyptians. The climax came when 
the angel of death smote all the first-born in the 
land of Egypt including the heir to the throne. In the 
night Pharaoh called for Moses and told him that 
he could let the people go. 

The details of this exciting flight into the night, 
the enslaved clans bearing their household treas¬ 
ures, driving their herds, all the men, women and 
children laden with gifts from the terrified Egyp¬ 
tians, have been re-lived around the passover tables 
of the Jews for centuries. Picture the dismay of 
the children of Israel when the chariots of the 
Pharaoh are seen coming in pursuit. Moses calm, 
relying wholly upon God, stands a very superman 
in contrast to the others who cower like frightened 
sheep. Both prose and ballad give vivid pictures 
of the scenes, the comfort of the radiant cloud hid¬ 
ing them from the enemy, their anxiety over the 
passage of the Nile, the rushing winds sweeping a 
pathway, the joy of safety at last on the opposite 
bank, then swift destruction overtaking the gorg¬ 
eous Egyptian chariots as the floods rush back and 
bury the proud enemies in their depths. No wonder 
the prophets use this reminder of God’s care in so 
many of their great orations. 


74 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


3. The Contents of the Ballad. 

Read aloud the ballad, noting that verses 1-10 
picture the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red 
Sea, and verses 11-13 describe the character of the 
God who so wonderfully delivered them; verses 14- 
18 explain the providential guidance of the Hebrews 
until they have settled in the promised land. 

The first couplet reads as follows.: 

I will sing unto Jehovah, for he hath triumphed gloriously; 
The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. 

It is likely that this constituted the whole song at 
the time of the deliverance, and that the women 
danced as they sang this memorial of their salvation. 
Rogers in his History and Literature of the Hebrew 
People explains the origin of ballads like this: “Such 
ballads spring up spontaneously when great deeds 
of war or great tragedies of life have become known. 
At once somebody makes a song, somebody un¬ 
known, somebody whose name will never be known. 
He sings it at home to the neighbors. It is learned 
at once and they who learn it sing it elsewhere. 
Seldom do they sing it just as the author made it. 
Often words are changed, sometimes a verse is 
added. Hundreds of such ballads were made in 
England before printing became easy and common. 

Hundreds more were made and printed on sheets of 
paper and sold on the streets of London after print¬ 
ing presses became common.” Among the grand 
old ballads the noblest, most thrilling, most sonor¬ 
ous is the glorious ballad of Chevy Chase. 

Erie Douglas on his milke-white steede 
Most like a baron bold 
Rode foremost of his company 
Whose armour shone like gold. 


THE BALLAD OF THE RED SEA 75 

Our English archers bent their bowes, 

Their hearts were good and true. 

At the first flight of arrowes sent, 

Full fore-score Scots they slew. 

4. Literary Features of the Ballad. 

Driver says of this poem, “The ode of triumph is 
one of the finest products of Hebrew poetry, remark¬ 
able for poetic fire and spirit, picturesque descrip¬ 
tion, vivid imagery, quick movement, effective paral¬ 
lelism, and bright sonorous diction.” 

Of the three kinds of parallelism mentioned in 
the introduction, two are found in this poem. Our 
understanding of the thought depends partly on our 
ability to answer this question, what has the author 
accomplished by the use of these parallelisms which 
he could not have accomplished by the use of prose? 

There is a fourth type of couplet in this ballad 
which has been called stair-like parallelism, where 
the second line repeats a few words of the first and 
then adds others. A good example of this is v. 16. 
Another example is Ps. 121, in which the words 
“help” and “keep” are used to produce this stair¬ 
like effect. 

Note also the similes (v. 5), metaphors (v. 12b), 
and hyperbole (v. 15c). There is more than vivid 
description in verses like 5 and 8; the words them¬ 
selves are so chosen that in reading them aloud the 
very sound of the voice conveys the feeling which 
the author intended to express. 

5. The Religious Message. 

Israel’s great gift to the world was a belief in one 
righteous God. That thought is brought out here 
with great clearness and beauty, especially in verse 


76 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


2, which is quoted in Isaiah 12 :2 and Ps. 118 :14. 

Another thought which had great value through¬ 
out the Old Testament history appears in v.13,— 
“the people that thou hast redeemed.” This con¬ 
ception that God has specially chosen Israel would 
seem to have been vindicated by history, for this 

little nation has played a part unsurpassed in the 
annals of mankind. 

The word “loving-kindness” in v. 13 strikes a 
note which Hosea takes up and uses throughout his 
prophecy. This element in God’s nature receives 
an emphasis in the Old Testament which has not 
often been recognized. God is love even in the Old 
Testament and his providential care of the lives of 
individuals and groups of people fills many of its 
pages and it is beautifully expressed in this ballad. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Before beginning the study of an example of poetry in the 
Bible, review other types suggested by Van Dyke (in the 
introduction to this chapter), giving examples of the 
different forms which he mentions. 

Discuss Van Dyke’s idea of the value of literary study of 
the Bible for the man of deep religious faith. 

Name three or more ways of distinguishing between poetry 
and prose in the Bible. 

What natural phenomena of Egypt make it easier for us 
to understand the ten plagues which form a historical 
background for this lesson? 

Describe the historical event of which the modern Jewish 
Passover is a memorial. 

Write a report in your notebook of a conversation with 
some Jew on the customs of observing Passover today. 
If possible bring some unleavened bread. 

What are the three sub-divisions of the main thought of the 
Ballad of the Red Sea? 

What was the occasion of the writing of the first couplet? 


THE BALLAD OF THE RED SEA 


77 


Describe the origin of ballads like this, and name a parallel 
in English literature. 

List the couplets of the ballad according to the kinds of 
parallelism. 

Write in your notebooks a simile and metaphor besides 
those mentioned in the chapter. 

Find lines in the ballad that express dramatic action and 
rapid movement. 

What is the most valuable religious idea of the Ballad of 
the Red Sea? 


Chapter XIII 

THE BEGINNINGS OF HEBREW LAW 

A primitive court of law. Exodus 18:13-27. 

An example of the first written laws. Exodus 34:17-26. 

The Decalogue in Exodus. Exodus 20:3-17. 

The Decalogue in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 5:7-21. 

The picture of the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. 

Exodus 19:10-25. 

1. The Discovery of the Law Code of Hammurabi. 

The oldest body of laws in existence was discov¬ 
ered in Susa, the ancient Persepolis, by a French ex¬ 
pedition, in the winter of 1901-2. This discovery 
was of intense interest to the whole Christian world 
because these laws of Hammurabi, written approxi¬ 
mately a thousand years before Moses, were in some 
cases practically identical with the laws of Moses. 
Like the code of Moses, they claimed to be inspired, 
for at the upper end of the front side of the rock on 
which they were written is a sculptured bas-relief 
representing the King Hammurabi receiving his laws 
from the sun-god, Shamash. At the end of the 
inscription we find these words of the king, which 
reveal the good motives he had in preparing these 
regulations for the life of his people in Babylonia: 

“That the strong may not injure the weak, in 
order to protect the widow and orphans, I have 
in Babylon. .. .in order to bespeak justice in the 
land, to settle all disputes, and heal all injuries, 
set up these my precious words, written upon my 
memorial stone, before the image of me, as king 
of righteousness / 9 


78 


THE BEGINNINGS OF HEBREW LAW 


79 


The likeness both in form and substance is seen 
by comparison of the following Babylonian and 
biblical laws. 


Hammurabi 14 

If a man has stolen the 

young son of a freeman, he 
shall be put to death. 

Hammurabi 195 
If a man has struck his 

father, one shall cut off his 
hand. 


Exodus 21:16 

And he that stealeth a man, 
and selleth him or if he be 
found in his hand, he shall 
surely be put to death. 

Exodus 21:15 

He that smiteth his father, 
or his mother, shall surely be 

7 v 

put to death. 


These likenesses mean that the Babylonian laws 
were known far and wide, and that the Hebrews in 
compiling their own system made use of them. This 
parallel “helps us to realize that the laws of Moses 
are not a kind of Jonah’s gourd, springing up in a 
night; but rather, a great tree with many branches, 
and also with many roots, a tree fed by heaven’s 
rain and Heaven’s dew. The discovery leads us to 
a bigger God, whose light shines not alone upon 
Israel, but upon every man coming into the world, 
upon every nation which at any time has sought 
the peace and the power of justice.” (W. J. Hutch¬ 
ins) 


2. A Primitive Court of Law. 

Exodus 18 has preserved a very important pic¬ 
ture of what happened in Israel before there was 
any written law. After Moses had safely led the 
Hebrews out of the land of Egypt, he assembled 
them in the region of Mount Sinai. We can imagine 
the tents in the plain, the flocks and herds grazing 
on the wild lands near by, and the larger tent which 


80 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


served as a center of worship. Near this place of 
worship Moses arranged for a sort of impromptu 
court where the people came to have their disputes 
settled. 

One historic day Moses had become exhausted by 
the great number of cases that had been brought 
before him when his father-in-law Jethro came to 
the place and observed the weariness of Moses. He 
made a suggestion that so far as we know is the 
starting point of the growth of all that great sys¬ 
tem of law which fills so many chapters of our Old 
Testament. It is most instructive to trace the stages 
by which the law developed from simple customs 
and precedents into the ten commandments, and 
later into more elaborate codes. 

The suggestion that Jethro made was that Moses 
should appoint many assistant judges, who should 
settle their cases either on the basis of tribal custom 
or the decisions of kings and leaders like Moses. 
An example of tribal custom would be the duty of a 
man who had accidently injured his neighbor’s ox 
to give a sound ox in its place. An example of a 
leader’s decision is found in 1 Sam. 30:24, where 
David decided that those who stayed by the bag¬ 
gage should share equally in the spoil with those 
who went into battle. 

This scene near Mount Sinai is worthy of careful 
study because it makes clear the origin of all law, 
for the “common law” is simply custom and prece¬ 
dent used in deciding cases in court. 

3. An Example of the First Written Laws. 

One of the first examples in our Bible of the 
change of the common law into written statutes is 


THE BEGINNINGS OF HEBREW LAW 


81 


found in Exodus 34. This is a decalogue written for 
shepherds, and bears on its face the evidence that 
it was used in Israel before the people had become 
traders and lived in cities. 

Students will note that the number of command¬ 
ments in Ex. 34, Ex. 18, and Deut. 5 is always ten. 
The explanation of this carries us back to the day 
when people could neither read nor write. They 
were taught to memorize rules by counting on the 
fingers. 

The following is the list of ten commandments 
which the shepherds were taught to obey, before the 
Decalogue of Exodus 20 came into force. It is 
found in Exodus 34:14-26. 

(1.) Thou shalt not prostrate thyself before any other god 
(v. 14). 

(2.) Thou shalt make thee no molten gods (v. 17). 

(3.) Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread (v. 18). 

(4.) Every first born is mine (v. 19). 

(5.) The feast of weeks thou shalt observe (v. 22). 

(6.) And the feast of ingathering at the turn of the year 
(v. 22). 

(7.) Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with 
leaven (v. 25). 

(8.) The offering of the Passover shall not be left until 
the morning (v. 25). 

(9.) The best of the firstlings of thy ground thou shalt 
bring to the house of Jahveh thy God (v. 26). 

(10.) Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk 
(v. 26). 

When Exodus was written the Jews had become 
accustomed to regard Moses as the author not only 
of these first written laws but also of their whole 
code. It is impossible now for us to know who 
wrote the different parts of the law. As we have 
them now the “Mosaic Laws” belong to many dif¬ 
ferent periods of Israel’s history. Some of the laws 


82 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


of the Pentateuch reflect the life of shepherds and 
farmers, others evidently grew out of the needs of 
people ruled by kings; still others were written by 
priests at a time when the temple service dominated 
the life of the people. It is proper to give Moses the 
credit for Israel’s law because it grew out of the 
principles which he taught the people. 

4. The Decalogue in Exodus and Deuteronomy. 

There are two versions of the Ten Commandments, 
one in Exodus 20 and the other in Deuteronomy 5. 
This Decalogue shows the influence of the prophets, 
who cared less for form and more for substance. 
Amos and Isaiah criticised the people severely for 
stealing, committing adultery, and bearing false 
witness, and then trying to make themselves right 
with God by going through the ceremonies of the 
Temple. When, in the seventh or eighth centuries 
before Christ, Hebrew law-givers revised the Mosaic 
Law to meet the needs of the new era, they could 
not ignore the new principles which had been 
announced by the great moral prophets. This 
explains why Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 are so 
much more advanced in thought than Exodus 34. 

These two versions of the Decalogue differ only 
slightly and were based upon an original list of 
short commands which probably ran as follows: 

Thou shalt have no other gods beside me. 

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. 

Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain. 

Remember the Sabbath day to hallow it. 

Honor thy father and mother. 

Thou shalt do no murder. 

Thou shalt not commit adultery. 

Thou shalt not steal. 

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. 

Thou shalt not covet. 


THE BEGINNINGS OF HEBREW LAW 83 

The difference between the lists in Exodus and 
Deuteronomy is due largely to the additions made 
at different times to explain the reasons for obeying 
the laws. For example, Exodus 20:11 gives as a 
reason for obeying the fourth commandment, “for 
in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth, the 
sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh 
day.” Deuteronomy 5:14,15 gives as a reason for 
the same commandment; “That thy man servant 
and thy maid servant may rest as well as thou. And 
thou shalt remember that thou wast a servant in the 
land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God brought thee 
out, thence by mighty hand and by a stretched-out 
arm; therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee 
to keep the Sabbath Day.” 

5. The Priests’ Picturesque Account of the Giving 
of the Law on Mount Sinai. 

Exodus 19 :10-25 was written long after the Jews 
had returned from the Babylonian exile, and gives 
an idealized account of the beginnings of the law, 
and ascribes to Moses much of the work done by 
later law-givers. This vivid description of the scene 
on Mount Sinai, in which Jehovah dramatically 
gives the law to Moses, is meant to teach that law 
is divine in origin and that its authority should be 
recognized by all the people. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Make a comparative study of the laws of Moses and Ham¬ 
murabi, noting the date, place, claim of supernatural 
authority in each, and some likenesses between the two 
codes. 

Report to the class the substance of Exodus 18, and tell 
what light it throws on the origin of law. 


84 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


Write in parallel columns in your notebooks the decalogues 
of Exodus 34 and Exodus 18, and state why it is neces¬ 
sary to suppose that they developed in different periods 
of history. 

Repeat from memory the Decalogue of Exodus 18 in its 
shorter form. 

Deuteronomy 5 contains a version of the Decalogue by later 
prophets and priests. Name one difference between it 
and the version in Exodus 18. 

Does the scene in Exodus 19:10-25 exaggerate the dignity 
and importance of the Mosaic law? 


Chapter XIV 

THE BALAAM ORACLES 


The prose story of Balaam. Numbers 22. 

First oracle. Numbers 23:7-10. 

Second oracle. Numbers 23:18-24. 

Third oracle. Numbers 24:3-9. 

Fourth oracle. Numbers 24:15-19. 

1. Sources of the Oracles. 

When we read this strange story of the sooth¬ 
sayer Balaam, we wonder why two distinct accounts 
of the incident are woven together. The explana¬ 
tion is as follows. Far back in the time of David 
the original story of Balaam was first told. As 
travellers and bards repeated it, additions were 
made and it finally took on several very different 
forms. Two or three centuries later the historians 
known to scholars as J and E were writing their 
histories of Israel and had to decide what form of 
the Balaam story to preserve. J, who was fond of 
vivid pictures and the supernatural, chose that form 
of the story which described the ass as speaking 
and Balaam as having mystical visions (Num. 22 :28; 
24:4). This is the same writer who in Genesis 3 
describes the serpent as speaking. 

The other form of the story (Num.23 :7-10, 18-24) 
was handed down by the E writer, who lived in the 
northern kingdom, was more restrained in language, 
never made animals speak, nor had God appear in 
person. As we study the four oracles, we shall en¬ 
joy them better if we remember that the first two 


86 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


were written by E and the last two by J. When 
we come upon apparent contradictions in chapter 
22, we should remember that they are explained by 
the circumstance that two accounts have been 
woven into one. 

2. The Story Behind the Poems. 

Balak, king of Moab, in dread of the great 
advancing host of Hebrews, which was about to 
encamp in his territory and impoverish his land, 
sent his elders to secure the services of a soothsayer 
by the name of Balaam who was credited with the 
supernatural power of calling down curses or 
blessings from heaven. When the elders had made 
known their mission, Balaam invited them to lodge 
with him that night. During the night God talked 
with Balaam and told him not to go with the elders, 
and not to curse the Hebrews, for the blessing of 
heaven was upon them. So in the morning the 
soothsayer refused to go. 

When the elders reported to Balak that they had 
failed, he sent some of his most honored princes to 
beseech Balaam to come. During the night after 
their arrival, God again appeared to Balaam and 
gave him permission to go with the princes, but 
commanded him to say only the words which He 
should put in his mouth. 

In the morning Balaam saddled his ass and 
started toward Moab with the princes. On the way 
the ass saw an angel in the road and ran aside into 
the field, but Balaam whipped her back into the 
road. Soon they came to a narrow pass between 
two cliffs. Again the ass saw an angel and shied 
against the wall, crushing the prophet’s foot. A 


THE BALAAM ORACLES 


87 


little farther on, in a very narrow place in the road, 
the ass saw the angel a third time and lay down 
under Balaam. In anger, the soothsayer smote the 
animal with his staff. Then the ass spoke and 
rebuked her master, and at that moment God opened 
the eyes of Balaam and for the first time he saw the 
angel standing in the middle of the road with a 
sword drawn in his hand. The angel said, “Go 
with the men, but only the word that I shall speak 
unto thee, that thou shalt speak.” 

As soon as Balaam reached Moab, the king 
hastened to take him to a high place of Baal from 
which they could view the tents of the Hebrews 
which seemed to cover the land. Balaam ordered 
seven altars built and offered on every altar a 
bullock and a ram. Then he went alone to a barren 
height and waited for inspiration from heaven. 

3. The Four Oracles. 

These four oracles and the circumstances under 
which they were delivered have no parallel in the 
Bible. A heathen seer, standing on a bare and 
rugged mountain top, not far from “Nebo’s lonely 
mountain,” is inspired by the God of the Hebrews 
and delivers some remarkable prophecies. Balaam 
seems to go into a sort of trance and to utter words 
of mystic meaning which he himself does not com¬ 
prehend. King Balak, from his position near the 
smoking altars, is looking up to the soothsayer with 
awe, combined with a happy expectation of super¬ 
natural aid against his enemies. But to his conster¬ 
nation the inspired prophet blesses the enemies of 
Moab instead of cursing them. Hodges, in his book 
How to Know the BiUe, says: “This pagan seer is 


88 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


inspired of God. As Melchizedek, king of Salem, 
was a true priest of the Most High God (Gen.l4:18), 
so Balaam is a true prophet. The gift of inspiration 
overpasses the boundaries of religion. 'God came 
unto Balaam,’ as he came to Confucius, to Zoroaster, 
to men of religion who had no place in either the 
Old Testament or the New.” 

Balak then takes the prophet to the top of Mount 
Pisgah, builds seven altars, and offers up a bullock 
and a ram on every altar to see if the oracle will not 
speak in his favor. Again Balaam goes apart to 
meet Jehovah while the king of Moab and his princes 
stand by the altars anxiously awaiting the result. 
When the divine afflatus seizes him, the prophet says; 

“God is not a man, that he should lie, 

Neither the son of man that he should repent. 

He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, 

Neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel. ’ ’ 

This strange process is repeated on Mount Peor 
where two oracles favorable to Israel are spoken. 

“And Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he 
smote his hands together; and Balak said unto Balaam, 
I called thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou 
hast altogether blessed them these three times. There¬ 
fore now flee thou to thy place; I thought to promote 
thee unto great honor; but, lo, Jehovah hath kept thee 
back from honor. And Balaam said unto Balak, Spake 
I not also to thy messengers that thou sentest unto me, 
saying, If Balak would give me his house full of silver 
and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of Jehovah, to do 
either good or bad of mine own mind; what Jehovah 
speaketh, that will I speak?’’ 

The literary form of these oracles is noteworthy. 
The first has seven synonymous parallelisms, and the 
rhythm is unusually fine. Examples of the progres¬ 
sive and antithetic parallelisms occur in the other 
oracles, and the metaphors and similes are numerous. 


THE BALAAM ORACLES 


89 


The wise choice of words and the skillful use of im¬ 
ages seem to reflect a rather advanced stage of poet¬ 
ry in Israel. It is believed that these oracles took 
form in the time of David, because the references to 
Moab and Edom imply that period of history. 
Doubtless they were embodied in the J and E his¬ 
tories during the ninth and eighth centuries before 
Christ. These suggestions open the door to a very 
inviting realm of literary study. 

In the realm of religion, also, these oracles open up 
many interesting lines of investigation. For exam¬ 
ple, what is the meaning of the prophet’s mystic 
experience in 24:3,4? Again, how do you explain 
the fact that Israel’s God inspires a heathen sooth¬ 
sayer? Does it foreshadow the belief of later ages 
that “God hath not left himself without witness in 
any nation?” Balaam’s prophecies concerning the 
future of Israel have had a remarkable fulfillment. 
Study 23:9, 10 ; 24:7, 9; 24:17-19. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Tell the prose story of Balaam. 

Describe the scene of the four oracles. 

Write in your notebooks the best examples of synonymous, 
progressive, and antithetic parallelisms in these oracles. 

Make a list of the different figures of speech found in the 
oracles. 

Discuss the question whether God in ancient times revealed 
himself to any people besides the Israelites. 

Write a verse that contains a prediction about Israel, one 
that shows the sincerity of Balaam, and another that 
describes his mystic experience. 


Part 4 

LITERARY SELECTIONS ILLUSTRATING THE 
FRONTIER LIFE OF THE HEBREWS 
DURING THE FIRST CENTURY IN PALESTINE 


Chapter XV 

THE SONG OF DEBORAH 

The prose setting. Judges 4. 

The song. Judges 5. 

1. The Historical and Literary Importance of the 
Song. 

This victory ode of Deborah’s celebrates one of 
the great crises in Hebrew history. After the death 
of Joshua the Hebrew tribes were in danger of 
being crowded out of Palestine by the Canaanites 
whom the Hebrews had left unconquered in the 
largest cities and plains of the country. They 
dared not use the regular roads for fear of capture 
and they were not allowed to have a blacksmith 
among them lest they should make weapons. All 
the work of Moses and Joshua seemed likely to be 
undone and the Promised Land lost to the Hebrews. 

At this juncture arose Deborah, a woman whose 
wisdom and prophetic powers brought many in¬ 
quirers to her as she sat under the famous palm- 
tree, five or six miles north of Jerusalem. Deborah 
saw that something must be done at once to prevent 

the extermination of Israel. She sent for a noted 

SO 



THE SONG OF DEBORAH 


91 


military leader by the name of Barak and with his 
help gathered ten thousand soldiers from the tribes. 
They assembled on Mount Tabor in the valley of 
Jezreel where Sisera, commander-in-chief of the 
Canaanites, had mustered a large army to quell the 
uprising. On the day of the battle, when the Israel¬ 
ites rushed down from Mount Tabor upon the ene¬ 
my, a timely downpour of rain made the valley 
impassable for the 900 chariots of Sisera and Israel 
was victorious. 

“From heaven fought the stars, 

From their courses they fought against Sisera. 

The river Kishon swept them away, 

That ancient river, the river Kishon. ” 

Josephus, writing in the first century A. D., ex¬ 
plains the victory as follows: 

“There came down from heaven a great storm with a vast 
quantity of rain and hail, and the wind blew the rain 
full in the face of the Canaanites, and so darkened their 
eyes that their arrows and slings were of little or no ad¬ 
vantage to them, nor would the coldness of the air permit 
the soldiers to make use of their swords; while Jhis storm 
did not so much incommode the Israelites because it came 
at their backs.” 

Following the battle, after the custom of those 
days, they celebrated the victory by dancing and 
singing on the part of the women. It is supposed 
that all or part of Judges 5 was written for that 
occasion. The song is recognized by almost all 
scholars as one of the earliest pieces of Hebrew liter¬ 
ature in the Old Testament, and it is also one of the 
finest. Bewer says, “This triumphal ode belongs 
in the judgment of critics to the finest odes in the 
literature of the world and is not excelled in poetic 
power by any of the later war poems of Israel / 9 


92 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


Fowler writes, “Whatever of uncertainty may at¬ 
tach to the effort to assign many specific poems to 
the pre-monarchical period, the one great literary 
monument of this age, the Deborah Song, is in itself 
evident proof that already, in the days of the early 
tribal struggles for possession of the land, the poet’s 
art had reached great power and some refinement.” 
Kent, in his The Songs, Hymns, and Prayers of the 
Old Testament, says: “It is the longest and noblest 
example of the triumphal ode in the Old Testament. 
In a series of dramatic scenes it presents the feelings 
of the actors and the important stages in the decisive 
battle which determined the mastery of Canaan and 
the fate of Jehovah’s people.” 

2. The Thought and Form of the Poem. 

Study first of all the six graphic and vigorous 
scenes: (1) verses 4 and 5, a picture of God’s march 
from Sinai to Palestine to save his people; (2) verses 
6 to 8, the wretched condition of Isdael, oppressed 
by the Canaanites; (3) verses 12 to 18, the conduct 
of the Hebrew tribes when Deborah sought to rouse 
them to action; (4) verses 19 to 22, description of 
the battle; (5) verses 25-27, the death of Sisera by 
the hand of a woman; (6) verses 28-30, the pathetic 
account of Sisera,’s mother at home waiting for her 
son’s return. Among the leading ideas of the poem 
are the following: The leadership of woman, the 
rallying power of belief in God, and the contrast 
between those that “jeoparded their lives unto the 
death” and the cowards that during the battle “sat 
among the sheepfolds” and “came not to the help 
of Jehovah against the mighty”. Perhaps there 
is no better expression in literature of the scorn due 


THE SONG OF DEBORAH 


93 


those who take no part in a supreme effort to save 
a nation. 

The literary form of the ode will repay careful 
study. One should begin by reading it aloud in 
order to feel the rhythm and power of the poetry. 
It is well to enumerate the figures of speech and to 
distinguish between the different kinds of parallel¬ 
ism in order to make the thought as clear as possi¬ 
ble. A device, which may be called stair-like paral¬ 
lelism, of which Psalm 121 is a fine example, is used 
in several places in the Song of Deborah. In verses 
12-14, the words “awake,” “arise,” and “down” 
form the stairs. In verses 19-23, the same effect is 
produced by the repetition of “fought.” “pranc- 
ings,” and “help”. Observe the same figure in 
verses 26, 27. There are three cases of the figure 
of apostrophe, in verses 2-3, 9-10, and 31. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

In the statement of facts, how does the poem in Judges 5 
differ from the prose account in Judges 4? 

What crisis does the poem celebrate? 

What is the meaning of “from heaven fought the stars”? 

What estimate do scholars place on the historical and liter¬ 
ary importance of the Song of Deborah? 

Write in your notebooks the three leading ideas of the 
poem, together with references to the verses that illus¬ 
trate those ideas. 

Make a list of the different figures of speech which the 
poem contains. 

Had the author of Psalm 19:4-6 read Judges 5:31? 

Compare Deborah with Joan of Arc. 

Find the following passages in the Song: (1) One that 
says it was Jehovah’s battle which was fought that day; 
(2) an allusion to a tribe that made great resolutions, 
but did not act; (3) a figure of speech that stands for 
a shower of rain; (4) an imitation of the stamping of 
horses’ feet. 

What is the chief religious lesson of the poem? 


CHAPTER XYI 

THE SWORD OF THE LORD AND GIDEON 


A picture of Gideon. Judges 6:11-24. 

Why Gideon was called Jerubbaal. Judges 6:25-32. 

The fleece of wool. Judges 6:33-40. 

The band of Gideon chosen. Judges 7:1-8. 

The dream of victory. Judges 7:9-14. 

The sword of the Lord and Gideon. Judges 7:15-23. 

Gideon declines a great honor. Judges 8:22-24. 

Jotham’s Fable. Judges 9:7-15. 

1. The Menace of the Midianites. 

The nomads of the south and east of Palestine, 
variously termed Midianites, Ishmaelites, and the 
Children of the East, made frequent raids on the 
disorganized Hebrew farmers in the eleventh cen¬ 
tury before Christ. Like the Bedouin of today, 
they did not attempt a permanent conquest, but only 
a thievish depredation. “Nomads prefer that set¬ 
tled people should do the work of sowing, while they 
reap the harvest. The comparison with locusts 
which pass over the land, stripping it and leaving 
it bare, is apt. The temporary flight of the inhabi¬ 
tants through the hills and caves was repeated up to 
the time of the Maccabees, and is still common in 
Syria, in the Balkans, and elsewhere at the pres¬ 
ent time. ” 

2. The Character of Gideon. 

The stories about Gideon are so well told that 
they have made his name a household word in all 
civilized countries. The conditions under which he 

94 


THE SWORD OF THE LORD AND GIDEON 95 

lived are vividly portrayed. There was no strong 
ruler, no commercial activity, no army; only groups 
of farmers here and there, struggling for a living, 
and “every man did what was right in his own 
eyes.” The following criticism of Gideon’s char¬ 
acter by Professor Phelps is too severe when we 
think of the crude age in which Gideon lived: 

1 ‘ They were finally delivered by the cautious and sceptical 
Gideon, who must have tried God’s patience with his 
doubtings, questionings and bargainings, but who for 
some reason was rewarded. His faith, like that of many 
others, depended wholly on facts and figures. I cannot 
regard him as a hero; he took no chances. The cal¬ 

culating shrewdness of human nature, the desire to invest 
with only assured profit, are sharply revealed in the char¬ 
acter of Gideon. ” 

The New Century commentary has a fairer estimate of 
Gideon. 

“He was evidently a man of great influence in Palestine. 
His own personal character is more clearly delineated 
than that of any other hero (except Samson, whose life 
is of quite another character). Above even his simple 
straight forwardness and his courage stands his religious 
nature. , ’ 

If one studies the references to Gideon in the pas- 
ages written at the head of this chapter, he will be 
able to add other qualities of character to the 
description of the man. 

3. Gideon’s Change of Name. 

Fowler (History of the Literature of Ancient 
Israel) believes that the occurrence of the two names, 
Gideon and Jerubbaal, is due to the combination of 
the two historical narratives J and E into one. Two 
historical episodes, one about Gideon, another about 
Jerubbaal, are here united. These documents J and 



96 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


E are a continuation of those that we studied in Gene¬ 
sis and Exodus. 

The story is a vivid picture of denominational 
rivalry in the little town of Ophrah, a few miles 
northeast of Bethel. 

4. The Test of Gideon’s Call. 

It was the custom in ancient times to ask for a 
material sign of God’s approval. The call of Moses 
was signalized by a burning bush, and Elisha’s call 
was evidenced by the miraculous dividing of the 
waters of the Jordan. The use of the fleece of wool 
as a test by Gideon shows that he had not outgrown 
the customs of his day and generation. Whatever 
interpretation scholars may put on this story, there 
can be no doubt that Gideon believed in a “power 
that makes for righteousness,” and that the belief 
was effective in his life. 

Read Mrs. Alexander’s poem on The Fleece of 
Gideon. 

5. The Selection of Gideon’s Band. 

It is not numbers alone that count. “Ten men 
working together, each man working heartily, what 
have you? You have ten times one man plus their 
unity, plus the enthusiasm born of cooperation, plus 
all the incalculable energies that are born only when 
heart is joined to heart, and soul is joined to soul.” 

After Gideon had dismissed 22,000 men, who were 
“fearful and trembling,” 10,000 still remained. 
Jehovah told him that w r as too many, and the water 
test was tried in order to reduce the number. 
Various explanations have been given of this test. 
The best one is that the 300 took water in their 


THE SWORD OF THE LORD AND GIDEON 97 

hands and licked it up as a dog laps, and that the 
rest bent down on their knees and drank directly 
from the stream. The latter would be less valuable 
as soldiers since they showed poor judgment in put¬ 
ting themselves in a defenseless posture when an ene¬ 
my might be near. 

6. A Dream Encourages Gideon. 

The ancients believed that every dream had its 
meaning, and was a message from heaven. Gideon 
overheard two Midianites telling a dream which one 
of them had had concerning a round cake of barley 
bread which had rolled on its edge, struck against 
a Midianite tent, and overturned it. This dream 
was interpreted as indicating the defeat of Midian 
by a man of Israel. 

7. The Battle and the Offer of Kingship. 

At about 10 P. M. a successful attack was made 
by the Israelites. Gideon’s men stood on three sides 
of the camp of the enemy, shouting, blowing their 
trumpets, and waving their torches. In a panic the 
Midianites fled toward the Jordan. 

The men of Israel (probably of his own tribe 
Manasseh) offered Gideon the kingship; and the offer 
included the right to have Gideon’s son succeed him, 
and thus establish a royal line. Gideon’s declination 
implied that God does not desire that any king 
should stand between Himself and His people Israel. 

8. Jotham’s Fable. 

There are only two fables in the Bible; the other 
is in 2 Kings 14:9. 

This one in Judges 9 :17 is most interesting. The 


98 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


satire of the fable is aimed at Abimelech. The 
seventy sons of Gideon had been exercising' authority 
over the Israelites, who were without any estab¬ 
lished government. At last one of them, Abime¬ 
lech, asserted his supremacy, killed off all his 
brothers, except one, and assumed the kingship. 
When the surviving brother, Jotham, heard the 
news, he spoke this fable to the people. He went 
up on Mount Gerizim on the south side of Shechem, 
and, standing on a projecting rock, addressed the 
assembled crowd. He said that the olive, fig tree, 
and vine declined to rule over the other trees be¬ 
cause God had given them nobler work to do; but 
the thorn pompously accepted the invitation, and 
boasted in ridiculous fashion of its own power. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Under what circumstances was Gideon called to be the 
savior of his tribe? 

How does Phelps differ from the New Century commentary 
in his estimate of Gideon? 

Write in your notebooks as complete a list as possible of 
the good qualities of Gideon. 

What evidences have we in Judges 6-8 that the two histories 
J and E are continued through the Pentateuch into 
Judges? 

Explain the reason for the use of the fleece of wool. 

Tell the story of the reduction of Gideon’s band. 

What was the meaning of the water test? 

Tell the dream that encouraged Gideon. 

Describe the night battle. 

Repeat Jotham’s fable from memory. 


Chapter XVII 
THE IDYL OF RUTH 


The Book of Ruth, Chapters 1-4. 

1. The Best Short Story. 

A recent text on the short story asserts that the 
Book of Ruth is one of the best-told and most beau¬ 
tiful stories in all literature. It is simple and ear¬ 
nest in thought, and has beauty and rhythm of 
style. The plot involves many dramatic incidents. 
The characters are described with an art so perfect 
that the reader is unaware of it. The contrasts in 
scenes and the sudden changes in fortune of the 
characters sustain the interest of the reader. 

A good woman of Bethlehem loses her husband 
and two sons; Ruth, a heathen girl, is exalted to a 
place among the chosen people; Boaz, a rich and 
notable man, marries this poor girl, who is gleaning 
in his fields; from a heathen ancestress, the Christ 
of the Jews is descended. 

The best way to enjoy this book is after all, as 
Moulton has said in his Modern Reader’s Bible, to 
read it without comment. “The story of Ruth,” he 
says, “is the very ideal and type of the Idyl: so 
delicate in its transparent simplicity that the worst 
service one can do the story is to comment on it.” 
2. The Motive of the Author. 

The author makes so prominent the fact that Ruth 
was a Moabite woman that it has long been believed 

by scholars that his motive was to condemn the racial 

99 



) ) 5 


100 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


exclusiveness of the Jews, for the story in its present 
form comes from that period in their history shortly 
after Ezra and Nehemiah had enforced the law 
against marriages with foreign women. A protest 
had been made against this by the son of the high 
priest who refused to give up his foreign wife and led 
a protestant group to Mount Gerizim and built a 
rival temple there. The books of Ruth and Jonah 
both bear witness to the existence of a liberal party 
in Jerusalem. If this is a true explanation of the 
book, certainly it must have made a profound impres¬ 
sion in later times, when David’s genealogy was 
traced back to Ruth. In still later times, when Jesus 
was found to be a descendant of David and Ruth, the 
broader view of life as presented in this story seems 
to have been fully justified. 

3. Interpretation of Difficult Passages. 

In the days when the judges judged, 1:1. The 
scene of the story is laid in the far distant age before 
Samuel and Saul. How early it was written we do 
not know; the last version was produced for a special 
purpose at a late date as we have seen above. 

Wives of the women of Moah, 1:4. Marriage 
with foreign women was not forbidden until later 
times. Deut. 23 :3, which was not in force until the 
seventh century before Christ, is especially severe on 
this point. 

Chemosh, 1:15, was the god of the Moabites. Jeho¬ 
vah was the God of the Jews. Each tribe had its 
own peculiar worship and there was no knowledge of 
the One God over all. 

Naomi... .Mara, 1:20. Naomi means pleasant, 
and Mara means bitter. 


(> ,, 
t (, i 


THE IDYL OF RUTH 


101 


Glean among the ears of coim, 2:2. This custom 
was afterward reduced to law in Deut. 24:19 and Lev. 
23 :22. 

One of our near kinsmen, 2:20. A kinsman in 
ancient custom was one who redeems a claim. If a 
man died without heirs, it was the duty of the kins¬ 
man to marry the widow and to give the first-born 
son the name of the dead. This son would inherit 
the property and perpetuate the family name. 

Now Boaz went up to the gate and sat down there, 
4 :1. The gate of an Eastern city is often a building, 
in the shade of which men may sit comfortably in 
the heat of the day. Near it is a broad open space 
where a market is held and the people meet for the 
interchange of news and settlements of disputes 
(Gen. 19:1; 23:10; 34:20). 

A man drew off his shoe, 4:7. The drawing off of 
the shoe meant the giving up of the man’s rights as 
in Deut. 25 :9. Among the Arabs today as among the 
Hebrews, the shoe is the symbol of possession. 

4. The Dramatization of Ruth. 

The story of Ruth lends itself readily to the dram¬ 
atic form. Very little scenery is necessary and the 
parts are very easy for students to take. Many a 
student has been awakened for the first time to the 
beauty of the Bible by taking part in a presentation 
of Ruth as a drama. 

Eighteen or more persons may be used in the cast 
of characters. 

Naomi, wife of Elimelech. 

Elimelech, a man of Bethlehem. 

Mahlon, Chilion, sons of Naomi and Elimelech. 


102 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


Ruth, Orpah, of the land of Moab, widows of Mah- 
lor and Chilion. 

Boaz, a kinsman of Naomi. 

Micah, a kinsman of Naomi. 

Deborah, a prophetess. 

Rebekah, Hannah, women of Bethlehem. 

Overseer of Boaz’ field. 

Two Young Men, Two Young Women, reapers in 
Boaz’ field. 

Gideon, Samuel, elders of the city. 

The following is a possible arrangement of the 
scenes or acts in the drama: 

Scene 1, Ruth 1:1,2 

Place: Bethlehem. Persons: Elimelech, Naomi, 
Mahlon, Chilion. A time of famine. 

Scene 2. Ruth 1:3-22 

Places: Moab, the journey back to Bethlehem, 
and the well of Bethlehem. 

Persons: Naomi, Orpah, Ruth, and some women 
of Bethlehem. 

Scene 3. Ruth Chapters 2 and 3 

Places: Field of Boaz and the house of Naomi. 
Persons: Boaz, Naomi, Ruth and the reapers in 
field of Boaz. 


Scene 4. Ruth Chapter 4 

Places: Gate of the city, with public square just 
inside the gate; the house of Boaz, in which the 
ancestor of David and Christ was born. 

Persons: Boaz, a near kinsman, the elders of the 
city; Ruth, a little child. 


THE IDYL OP RUTH 


103 


5. Outstanding Ideas of the Idyl. 

No piece of literature can be really great unless 
it has deep thought as well as fine style. What are 
the great teachings of Ruth? 

While the action of the story seems to turn on 
the recognition of the duty on the part of the near¬ 
est relative to marry the widow of a man who has 
died without male children, nevertheless the prom¬ 
inence of the fact that the greatest royal line of the 
Hebrews was descended from a Moabite girl com¬ 
pels us to think that the leading idea is racial 
breadth and sympathy. The proud exclusiveness 
of the Jew, and by inference all racial exclusiveness 
and narrowness of sympathy, is condemned. 

The other great suggestion of this book is the 
“grace of loyalty.’’ Professor Phelps in his Human 
Nature in the Bible makes this the leading theme of 
the Book of Ruth. He says: ‘ ‘ Ruth is a pretty name: 
in Hebrew it means friendship and in English pity. 
She lived up to her name in both languages; she was 
both loyal and sympathetic.... There is nothing sen¬ 
timental and nothing insipid in this idyl; it is a sub¬ 
urban pastoral, illustrating the grace of loyalty. We 
have learned in the twentieth century not to mini¬ 
mise the virtue of loyalty; this fine flower of human 
nature has its roots deep in the human heart. The 
beauty of loyalty consists in giving rather than receiv¬ 
ing ; giving all if need be, and asking nothing before or 
after. Selfish and calculating persons are conspicu¬ 
ously without it; and it is not fully understood by 
men of pure intellect. But there is always something 
splendid, something refreshing about people who have 
it.” 


104 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


The words in which Ruth expressed her loyalty to 
Naomi will never be forgotten. 

“Entreat me not to leave thee, 

And to return from following after thee: 

For whither thou goest, I will go; 

And where thou lodgest, I will lodge; 

Thy people shall be my people, 

And thy God my God; 

Where thou diest, I will die, 

And there will I be buried. 

Jehovah do so to me, and more also, 

If aught but death part thee and me.” 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Name the leading characters in the story of Ruth. 

What sudden changes of fortune do these characters ex¬ 
perience? Tell the story. 

What elements in the character of the heroine Ruth give 
distinction to the story? 

What was the motive of the author? 

Write in your notebooks four or more literary qualities of 
the Book of Ruth that entitle it to a place among the 
best writings in the world. 

Write in your notebooks in very brief form the drama of 
Ruth as suggested in point 4. 

Memorize the little poem on loyalty in 1:16, 17. 


Chapter XVIII 
THE BOY SAMUEL 

The song of Hannah. I Samuel 2:1-10. 

The Magnificat. Luke 1:46-55. 

The call of Samuel. I Samuel 3:1-21. 

1. The Literary Character of the Books of Samuel. 

When the reader of the Bible turns to the history 
in the books of Samuel, he expects to find a series of 
more or less dry records. But to his surprise he comes 
upon a group of pictures, like that of the boy Samuel, 
so clearly drawn that they can never be forgotten. 
One character after another is delineated in the midst 
of dramatic situations which sustain attention to the 
end. Moreover, the narrative in which these pictures 
are imbedded is remarkable for its vivid and unpre¬ 
meditated simplicity. 

Prof. Meyer thinks that the narrative in Samuel 
“stand far above every thing which we know else¬ 
where of ancient historical oriental writing.” Indeed, 
they compare favorably with the best histories in the 
world, and by many people are regarded as the most 
important. 

2. The Song of Hannah. 

Hannah’s song of thanksgiving over the birth of 
Samuel is comparable in many ways to Mary’s song 
in Luke 1:46-55. The thoughts of the two poems are 
similiar. Both express exultant joy in God’s saving 
power (I Sam. 2:1 and Lk. 1:47) ; and both rejoice 

105 


106 


BIBLICAL LITERzVTURE 


in the exaltation of the poor, and the bringing low of 
the rich (I Sam. 2:7 and Lk. 1:52). 

The likeness between the songs in thought and 
structure is so great that we may assume that the 
author of the one was influenced by the other. The 
same type of parallelism occurs in both, and both use 
the same unusual word “horn”. As in the case of 
other poems of the Old Testament, the best intro¬ 
duction to Hannah’s Song is a study of the different 
kinds of parallelism and figures which appear in it. 

3. The Call of Samuel. 

The Bible gives a great deal of space to the visions 
and other experiences connected with the call to ser¬ 
vice of men who afterward became distinguished. 
Moses, Gideon, Elisha, Isaiah, and many others were 
called after they had reached the age of manhood and 
the descriptions of their experiences are among the 
most treasured writings of the world. Samuel re¬ 
ceived his call in early boyhood and thus differs from 
every other great character in the Bible. 

The scene of Samuel’s call was the tabernacle at 
Shiloh where the boy had been placed by his mother 
and consecrated to a religious life. He was, it is es¬ 
timated, between twelve and fifteen years old, and his 
duty was to assist the aged priest Eli in the services. 
He had a little chamber in the tabernacle, not far 
from Eli, which opened into the main room where 
“the lamp of God” burned all night. Joshua, evi¬ 
dently, had followed this same custom of sleeping in 
the Tent of Meeting (Ex. 33:11). 

In the night Samuel was awakened by a voice 
calling his name. He ran to Eli thinking that the 
aged priest needed him. At the third call Eli sug- 


THE BOY SAMUEL 


107 


gested that the call was from God and told the lad to 
answer, “ Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.” 
When Samuel did answer God, he was told of the 
doom of Eli’s house. Very soon it was noised abroad 
that Samuel was to be the next prophet. 

The times needed a leader like Samuel, for Eli’s 
sons, who were the active priests, were bad men. They 
used the best of the sacrifices to satisfy their own 
appetites, and were immoral in their conduct. Be¬ 
cause of the sins of these priests men despised the 
sacred sacrifices. In later years Samuel became a 
great prophet in Israel, thus fulfilling the promise of 
these early days. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Describe the literary beauty of the Books of Samuel, and 
name some of the characters which are finely delineated 
in those books. 

Select a passage which is “remarkable for its vivid and 
unpremeditated simplicity. ’ ’ 

How do these books compare with other histories? 

Write in your notebooks passages which are esssentially 
alike in thought from Hannah’s Song and the Magnificat. 

Write also a synonymous parallelism from each of these 
poems. 

Make a list of the important religious lessons in Hannah’s 
Song. 

What great men have vivid stories told about them in the 
Bible concerning their calls to service? 

Describe the call of Samuel. 

Why was he afraid to tell the aged priest Eli what God 
had said? 

As a “prophet’’ what would Samuel be expected to do? 

What were the conditions among the priests and people 
that showed the need of a man like Samuel? 


Part 5 

LITERARY SELECTIONS WITH THE HEBREW 
MONARCHY FOR A BACKGROUND 


Chapter XIX 

THE CHOICE OF SAUL AS THE FIRST KING 

The first meeting of Samuel and Saul. I Samuel 9:1*26. 

The anointing of Saul and the three signs. I Samuel 

9:27-10:13. 

Saul delivers a town in distress. I Samuel 11:1-15. 

1. The Sources of the Books of Samuel. 

Even a hasty reading of the way in which Saul 
became king, as it is described in I Sam. 9-12, reveals 
statements that are hard to reconcile. One series of 
statements represents Samuel as bitterly opposing the 
monarchy and describing the many evils that the 
people will bring upon themselves if they have a king 
rule over them; the other pictures Samuel as earnestly 
working for the establishment of the monarchy and 
asserts that God indicated to Samuel that Saul should 
be anointed as king. The first series is found in I 
Sam. 8 and 12; the second in I Sam. 9, 10, 11. 

The explanation of this difference is found in the 
fact that there was an early and a late account of the 
founding of the Hebrew kingdom. The early account, 
probably, is the oldest historical writing among the 
Hebrews, and comes from the tribe of Benjamin, 
Saul’s old home. The date of this document is usu- 

108 



THE CHOICE OF SAUL AS THE FIRST KING 109 

ally given as 950 B. C. The later document, which 
represents Samuel as opposed to the kingdom, origin¬ 
ated among the prophets of Northern Israel not 
earlier than 750 B. C. 

2. The First Meeting of Samuel and Saul. 

After the defeat of the Hebrews by the Philistines 
the sacred ark was lost to Israel. Eli, the priest at 
Shiloh, died of grief. The ark had many strange 
adventures and was finally sent back to the Hebrews 
because plagues broke out among the people who 
retained it. Samuel had come to be regarded as 
Israel’s judge. When the people obeyed his de¬ 
cisions they overcame their enemies. 

But Samuel was growing old, and there was need 
of a youthful leader to meet the crisis brought about 
by the encroachment of foreign enemies. The Phil¬ 
istines on the west, and the Ammonites on the east 
had become especially troublesome. 

The way in which a brilliant, youthful leader was 
provided is described in the passages printed at the 
head of this chapter. They tell how the tall, impul¬ 
sive, and capable Saul went out to find his father’s 
lost herd, and found, instead, a kingdom. Read the 
story by the following outline, and learn to tell it in a 
way that will bring out the character of the persons, 
the location of the places, and the dramatic changes 
in the experience of Saul as clearly and interestingly 
as possible. 

I Samuel 9:1-10, Saul, in search of his father’s lost herd, 
is directed to the prophet Samuel. 

9:11-21, Saul goes to Ramah and finds Samuel there, and 
Samuel has been warned by God of the coming of Saul. 

9:22-24, The banquet on the hill at which the youthful Saul 
was given the seat of honor. 


110 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


9:25-10:1, Samuel entertains Saul at his home, and next 
morning anoints the astonished young man as king. 

10:2-16, The strange experiences of Saul on his way home. 

3. The Significance of the Anointing with Oil. 

Anointing was the method of consecrating a man 
to the kingly office. A small amount of oil was poured 
upon the head by some person wdio w r as recognized as 
the official representative of God. From the moment 
of his anointing, a man wms set apart from others, 
much as one is officially set apart as President of the 
United States by the oath administered to him in be¬ 
half of the sovereign people by some legal representa¬ 
tive. 

I Samuel 10:1 is the earliest recorded instance in 
the Old Testament of the act of anointing. This 
custom had been long observed in Canaan as we may 
infer from Judges 9: 8, 15, and from a reference in 
the Tell-el-Amarna letters to the anointing of a 
Canaanite prince. “At the outset it clearly signified 
the transference to the person anointed of part of the 
mysterious holiness or virtue of the deity in whose 
name and by whose representative it was performed. ’ ’ 
This subject is of peculiar importance to a student 
of the Bible because the w r ord “Messiah’’, afterwards 
applied to Jesus, is simply the Greek equivalent of the 
Hebrew word “anointed.” When applied to Jesus, 
it signified that he was recognized as that ideal king 
so often spoken of in the Old Testament. 

4. The Event which made Saul, thus far practically 

unknown to the Hebrew tribes, a famous man 
and most acceptable king. 

This somewhat sensational episode is described in 
I Samuel XI. Saul, a farmer-king, is plowing with 


THE CHOICE OF SAUL AS THE FIRST KING 111 


his oxen, at Gibeah. Messengers come running to him 
from beyond the Jordan, asking for immediate help 
against the Ammonites, who had threatened to put 
out the eyes of the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead. The 
manner in which Saul responds convinces his nation 
that he is worthy to be their leader. Read the story 
by the following outline: 

I Samuel 11:1-5, The messengers from Jabesh find Saul in 
the field. 

11:6-10, Saul’s method of assembling an army. 

11:11, The victory over the Ammonites. 

11:12-15, Enthusiastic confirmation of Saul as King. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

What explains the two different views of Samuel’s attitude 
toward the kingdom? 

What chapter of the Bible contains the oldest consecutive 
piece of historical writing done by the Hebrews? 

What conditions in Israel called for a vigorous young 
leader ? 

Describe the circumstances under which Saul was intro¬ 
duced to Samuel. 

Tell about the banquet in the evening and the anointing of 
Saul the next morning. 

Wliat was the meaning of the three signs by which Saul’s 
destiny was confirmed? 

What did the custom of anointing with oil signify? 

To what word in the Hebrew language is the Greek word 
“Messiah” equivalent, and why was it applied to Jesus? 

Give an account of Saul’s call to deliver the city of Jabesh- 
Gilead. 

How did this victory affect the reputation of Saul? 

Discuss the importance of that respect for authority which 
the people in all nations have shown. Why did anointing 
add to the recognized authority of rulers? 


Chapter XX 

VIGNETTES OF JONATHAN AND DAVID 


Jonathan in a daring exploit. I Samuel 14:1-14. 

Jonathan as a popular idol. I Samuel 14:36-45. 

David and Goliath. I Samuel 17:4-51. 

An historic friendship. I Samuel 18:1-5; 19:1-7. 

David as a military hero. I Samuel 18:6-9. 

Jonathan saves David. I Samuel 20:1-42. 

1. The Setting of the Vignettes. 

The Philistines had come up from the coast-lands 
to renew their attempt to conquer the Hebrews. Saul 
had gathered a little army of three thousand men to 
check their advance, but he failed to hold Michmash, 
an important Hebrew fortification, and the victorious 
enemy stationed a garrison there. Michmash was the 
name of the precipitous cliff across the valley from 
Geba, where Jonathan was with the Hebrew garrison 
which was under the command of Saul. 

2. Jonathan As a Soldier and Idol of the People. 

Jonathan proposes to his armor-bearer that they 
go down across the valley, climb the opposite cliff, and 
make a surprise attack on the Philistine garrison, 
trusting in Jehovah to give them success. As the 
brave young men suddenly appear and kill twenty 
men with javelins and stones, the taunts of the enemy 
were changed to wonder and fear. An earthquake 
further roused their superstitious terror and the 
panic quickly spread. Saul saw the commotion and 
ordered a general attack. 

112 


VIGNETTES OF JONATHAN AND DAVID 


113 


When the Philistines were in full flight, an in¬ 
cident occured which illustrates the superstition of 
Saul and his people, and at the same time throws into 
relief the intelligence and goodness of Jonathan. In 
order to guard against delay in the pursuit, Saul 
pronounced a curse on any one who should stop to 
take food until the rout of the Philistines was com¬ 
plete. Jonathan, not being informed of this curse, 
ate a little honey. Now the oracle, which Saul con¬ 
sulted to see if he should continue the pursuit on the 
next day, refused to answer. To Saul and the priest 
this meant that some one had sinned and God was 
offended. Having ordered all the soldiers to come 
together Saul found that his own son Jonathan was 
the offender. Either from a sense of justice or from 
stubbornness Saul refused to save Jonathan but the 
people interfered and said that the curse must not fall 
on their idol who had that day saved them from the 
enemy. 

3. Young David in Single Combat Against the 
Giant. 

One’s sympathy is wholly with the boy David as he 
comes up from the farm laden with food for his 
brothers who are soldiers in the Hebrew army. When 
David arrives at camp, he finds the army frightened 
by a Philistine giant who has challenged the Hebrews 
to single combat. The story of David’s valor and 
success should be told by the pupils in class. An ex¬ 
cellent summary is found in the outline followed by 
Kuhnau, who was the originator of the type of musi¬ 
cal composition called the sonata. In a quaint, de¬ 
lightful sonata, entitled David and Goliath, he ar¬ 
ranged the separate movements as follows: 


114 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


1. The stamping and taunting of Goliath. 

2. Terror of the Israelites and their prayer. 

3. Courage of David, his desire to meet the giant, and his 
confidence. 

4. Contest of words between David and Goliath. 

5. The combat in which Goliath falls and is slain. 

6. Flight of the Philistines who are pursued and slain by 
the Israelites. 

7. Exultation and feast of the victorious people. 

8. The praise of David sung by the women, in antiphonal 
choirs. 

9. General joy and triumph expressing itself in dancing 
and singing. 


4. The Friendship of David and Jonathan. 

This friendship is so beautifully described in these 
brief passages that it has taken a permanent place in 
the thought of the world and has become a type of all 
generous and lasting friendship. Greek literature 
has a parallel in the love of Damon and Pythias. Py¬ 
thias had been condemned to die and his friend Damon 
was allowed to take his place in prison while the 
friend was freed to attend to important business on 
the condition that Damon should die as a substitute 
in case Pythias did not return on the appointed day. 
When Pythias did return on time, the ruler of the 
city was so impressed with their friendship that he 
pardoned the offender and asked to be counted in the 
circle of their friends. 

Saul’s jealously blinded him to the beauty of the 
friendship of David and Jonathan. 

David saw that everything he did increased Saul’s 
feeling of enmity, and he asked Jonathan’s aid. They 
laid a plan to discover Saul’s intentions concerning 
David. David was to hide during the days of special 
sacrifices, then if Saul was still determined to kill him, 
Jonathan was to make it known by a flight of arrows. 


VIGNETTES OF JONATHAN AND DAVID 


115 


The young men made a solemn pact to be friends for¬ 
ever. The story of the arrows should be told in dra¬ 
matic detail. 

5. David’s Military Glory. 

When David had completed his first campaign 
against the Philistines the women sang his praise in a 
famous couplet, 

Saul has slain his thousands, 

And David his ten thousands. 

This is an example of the folk-lore of Israel. A 
couplet would originate in connection with the danc¬ 
ing and singing over a victory, and often that couplet 
would become the basis of a poem of considerable 
length as in the case of Exodus 15. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Describe the military and geographical background of these 
stories, noting the boundaries of the Philistines and the 
location of the places mentioned. 

What peculiar formation of the land made possible the 
exploit of Jonathan at Michmash? 

Why was the curse pronounced by Saul on one eating food 
taken so seriously by the people? 

Tell in detail the story of the curse, and give from it an 
example of the democratic spirit of the Hebrews. 

Let one student demonstrate the telling of the story of 
David and Goliath as it should be told a class of young 
pupils. 

What characteristics are essential in such a friendship as 
that of David and Jonathan? 

Why has there been no such historic friendship between 
two women? 


Chapter XXI 

DAVID AS AN OUTLAW 

David secures the sword of Goliath. I Samuel 21:1-19. 

At the cave of Adullam. I Samuel 22:1, 2. 

David “inquires of the Lord .” I Samuel 23:1-13. 

The meanness of Nabal. I Samuel 25:2-13. 

The eloquent plea of Abigail. I Samuel 25:14-35. 

David spares Saul’s life. I Samuel 26:1-25. 

1. Introduction. The Secret of the Success of 
David and of Israel. 

Saul’s jealousy compelled David to flee from the 
king’s court at Gibeah. His adventures, as he wan¬ 
dered in the wild regions of Judah from the borders 
of the Philistines in the west to the dark ravines of 
the Dead Sea on the east, reveal a many sided char¬ 
acter. He did many cruel and evil deeds, but on the 
whole he stood for justice in those wild times when 
there was no law and order. He was intensely religious 
and tender hearted, and secured for the nation many 
great advantages, like the establishment of a national 
system of worship. 

The Hebrew nation, also, was many-sided and 
often seemed likely to fail because of its great sins, 
yet it survived while more powerful nations disap¬ 
peared without leaving a trace of good. George Adam 
Smith contrasts Israel with the Philistines in this 
respect: '‘Israel attained to a destiny, equalled in 
the history of mankind only by Greece and Rome, 
whereas all the fame of the Philistine lies in having 
served as a foil to the genius of the Hebrew, and 
today his name against theirs is the symbol of im¬ 
penetrableness and obscurantism.” 

116 


DAVID AS AN OUTLAW 


117 


The attainments of David and of Israel alike are 
explained by two things: their belief in a holy God 
who had a plan for human history, and a sense of a 
mission of great importance to all mankind. 

2. The Sword of Goliath. 

David escaped from the king’s headquarters at 
Gibeah, four miles north of Jerusalem, without food 
and weapons. In the path of his flight was the little 
town of Nob, where there was a place of worship. 
David, pretending to be on a secret mission from the 
king, called at the sanctuary, and asked the high 
priest for bread and a spear, or sword. There was 
no bread except that which had been consecrated to 
the uses of the sanctuary, but David took that and 
also the sword of Goliath which had been kept as a 
souvenir of the great victory over the Philistines. A 
little later Saul took terrible revenge on the priests 
and the people of Nob for giving this aid to David 
(I Samuel 22:9-23). 

We next see David at the cave of Adullam where 
400 other outlaws have joined him. Adullam was 
about 15 miles southwest from Jerusalem. Kirkpat¬ 
rick, in his commentary on Samuel in the Cambridge 
Bible, calls attention to the fact that 4 ‘the sides of 
the tributary valleys are lined with rows of caves, 
amply sufficient to accommodate David’s 400 men.” 

3. David’s Religion. 

It is difficult for us to put ourselves in the place 
of David and understand what he meant by prayer. 
He calls it “inquiring of the Lord.” A good example 
of David’s religious acts is found in the story in Sam¬ 
uel 23 of his deliverance of the village of Keilah from 
the Philistines. When they asked him to save Keilah, 


118 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


he went to the priest Abiathar, who had escaped from 
the massacre at Nob, and asked him to consult Jehovah 
concerning the proposed expedition. Abiathar put 
on his ephod, which looked like a breastplate, and on 
a little shelf attached to the ephod, shook dice, called 
Urim and Thummim. If the dice fell in a certain 
way, the Hebrews believed that God was answering 
in the affirmative; if another way, it meant the neg¬ 
ative. This was the only way, so far as the records 
show, in which David talked with God. This may 
seem formal and even crude to us, but there can be 
no question that David was a sincerely religious man. 

4. The Eloquent Plea of Abigail. 

During his outlaw life, David was obliged to 
depend for supplies upon the wealthy farmers or 
shepherds, whose property he would protect from the 
invaders in return for the food. Professor Phelps 
describes an instance of this sort: “It seems that he 
(David) and his followers had protected the property 
of a rich farmer named Nabal; being in need of food, 
David sent his young men to this plutocrat, request¬ 
ing assistance. Nabal was a hard-bitten old skinflint, 
and he said, 'Who is David? Am I going to hand 
over my goods to a runaway servant?’ When this 
message was brought back, the impulsive and passion¬ 
ate young leader flew into a tempest of rage and 
sallied out to destroy Nabal, his family and his en¬ 
tire possessions. There is no doubt that he would 
have done this if it had not been for Nabal’s pretty 
wife Abigail. She secretly took an enormous heap 
of costly provisions, and went to meet the avenger. 
David was extremely susceptible to beauty, and when 
this “woman of good understanding and of a beauti- 


DAVID AS AN OUTLAW 


119 


ful countenance” looked him in the eyes and spoke 
flatteringly and soothingly, he melted like snow in 
the sunshine. She was as fair in speech as in face; 
she said: ‘ The soul of my lord shall be bound in the 

bundle of life with the Lord thy God. ’ David blessed 
her for coming, and for saving him from the guilt of 
murder. She returned home.” 

The plea of Abigail is one of the literary master¬ 
pieces of the Old Testament. Note the conciliatory 
approach to the angry David, the conciseness of the 
speech, the choice diction, and the beautiful figures. 
We recall that other women have been credited with 
beautiful parts of the Old Testament: Miriam with 
Exodus 15, and Deborah with Judges 5. 

5. David’s Forgiving Love. 

Saul continued his unrelenting pursuit of the 
youthful David. More than once David, who was a 
more skilful warrior than Saul, had the king within 
his power, but refused to capture him or harm him 
in any way. The incident in I Samuel 26 :l-25 is an 
excellent example of the generosity of David. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

In what respects were the careers of the individual David 
and the nation Israel successful? 

What was the secret of their success? 

What w r as the awful penalty inflicted on the priests and 
people of Nob for unknowingly helping David in his 
flight ? 

Point out on the map the location of Gibeah, Nob, and 
Adullam. 

Name a good deed and a bad deed of David during his out¬ 
law life. 

Describe David’s method of prayer. 

How did David’s outlaw band secure their food? 

Tell the story of Nabal. 

Read the plea of Abigail, and make a list of its literary 
qualities with references to the most beautiful passages. 


Chapter XXII 
DAVID’S ELEGY 


The witch of Endor. I Samuel 28:4-20. 

The death of Saul and Jonathan. I Samuel 31:1-13. 

David’s Elegy. II Samuel 1:19-27. 

1. Introduction. The Historical Setting of the 
Elegy. 

The armies of the Philistines and Hebrews were 
encamped in the valley of Esdraelon, facing each 
other on the slopes of Mt. Gilboa. Saul’s courage 
failing, the night before the battle, he went down to 
the little village of Endor to consult a spiritualistic 
medium. She called up the dead prophet Samuel, 
and interpreted his message to the king as follows: 
“The Lord hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand 
and given it to David, because thou obeyest not the 
voice of the Lord.” 

The next day Saul and Jonathan lost their lives 
on Mt. Gilboa. To commemorate their memories 
David wrote an elegy of which Professor Wild, in 
her Literary Guide to the Bible, says: “This is one 
of the most famous and beautiful elegies in all litera¬ 
ture. Taken against the historical background of 
First Samuel and the account of David’s relation 
with Saul and Jonathan, its noble spirit is more 
clearly apparent.” 

William Lyon Phelps, in discussing the elegy on 
Saul and Jonathan, calls attention to two fine quali¬ 
ties in the character of David. 

120 


DAVID ? S ELEGY 


121 


“There were two fine qualities in David that were never 
understood even by those closest to him; one was his 
reverential loyalty to King Saul, the other the strength 
of his family affection. Both were greater than his 
concern for his personal glory or safety. Nearly all men 
have been glad to learn of the death of their enemies, 
especially when an immediate advantage rises from it. 
Julius Caesar and David—both humane—are the notable 
exceptions. David was at Ziklag one day when a messen¬ 
ger came from the field of battle, bearing the news that 
Saul was dead and saying that he, the messenger, had, 
at the king’s request, killed him. To the astonishment 
of the visitor, David was struck with horror. Wast thou 
not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the 
Lord’s anointed? And he had the man killed on the 

spot. Then he composed an elegiac poem for Saul 

and Jonathan, which, in immortal phrase, sets forth the 
passion of loyalty and friendship.” 


2. The Structure of the Elegy. 

This poem was taken by the author of Samuel from 
an ancient collection of poems called the Book of 
Jashar . This collection, and another entitled the 
Book of the Wars of Jehovah , are the only collections 
of poems which are quoted by name in the earlier 
books of the Bible; but the references (Num. 21:27; 
Num. 21:14; Josh. 10:12; 2 Sam. 1:19; 1 Ks. 8:12) 
prove that such anthologies were being made in Israel 
as early as the time of David. 

A translation by Professor Kent, based on a revi¬ 
sion of the Hebrew text, runs as follows: 

Weep, O Judah! 

Grieve, O Israel! 

On thy heights are the slain! 

How have the mighty fallen! 

Tell it not in Gath, 

Declare it not in the streets of Askelon; 

Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, 

Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult. 



122 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


Ye mountains of Gilboa, may no dew descend, 

Nor rain upon you, O ye fields of death! 

For there was the shield of the mighty cast away, 

The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil. 

From the blood of the slain, 

From the fat of the mighty, 

The bow of Jonathan turned not back, 

The sword of Saul returned not empty. 

Saul and Jonathan, the beloved and the lovely! 

In life and in death they were not parted; 

They were swifter than eagles, 

They were stronger than lions. 

Daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, 

Who clothed you daintily in fine linen, 

Who put golden ornaments on your garments (and say) : 

How have the mighty fallen in the midst of battle! 

Jonathan, in thy death hast thou wounded me! 

I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan! 

Thou wert surpassingly dear to me, 

Thy love to me was far more than the love of woman! 

How have the mighty fallen, 

And the weapons of war perished! 

We see in this poem the beginnings of the elegiac 
rhythm which did not reach its perfection until five 
hundred years later when the Book of Lamentations 
was written. Lamentations 1:1-3, for example, is 
an illustration of the perfect form of the elegy, each 
line having five accented syllables, with a logical 
pause after the third. 

How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! 

She is become as a widow, that was great among the 
nations! 

She that was a princess among the provinces, how is she 
become tributary! 

A solemn effect was produced when reading this 
aloud by dropping the voice after the third beat in 
each line and letting the tone fall away to almost 
silence at the end. David’s Elegy approaches this 


DAVID ’s ELEGY 


123 


complete elegiac form in line 4 of stanza 6, and in 
the couplet which ends the poem. By grouping to¬ 
gether three lines, selected from different parts of the 
poem, it is easy to see the growth of the elegiac strain 
through the successive stanzas. 

How have the mighty fallen! 

How have the mighty fallen—in the midst of the battle! 

How have the mighty fallen—and the weapons of war 
perished! 

Note, also, that the poem opens with a stanza in the 
quick, two-beat measure, which gradually rises to 
the three and four beat measure, and closes with a 
long, five-beat elegiac line. This produces the effect 
of power. In addition to this quality of power, and 
to the element of pathos produced by the elegiac 
strain, note the beautiful phrases that cling to the 
memory in verses 23, 25 and 26. 

3. The Teachings of the Poem. 

Friendship and loyalty are beautifully expressed 
in these lines, but deeper than these sentiments is 
the spirit of forgiving love manifest in David’s 
eulogy of Saul. For we must remember that they 
were written by David in honor of his most deadly 
enemy, Saul having repeatedly tried to murder 
David. 

The historical records of Jonathan’s friendship 
for David add pathos to the expressions of David’s 
grief, and help the reader appreciate this wonder¬ 
ful friendship. David’s tribute to Jonathan is more 
beautiful and touching than the famous tribute in 
English literature written by Tennyson in memory 
of Arthur Hallam. 


124 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


My Arthur, whom I shall not see 
’Til all my widowed race be run; 

Dear as the mother to the son, 

More than my brothers are to me! 

Browning has put into David’s mouth words 
about King Saul—that big, generous, impulsive, 
fallible man—which find a response in every mind. 

11 0 Saul, it shall be 

A face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me, 

Thou shal't love and be loved by, for ever; a Hand like 
this hand 

Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the 
Christ stand! ’’ 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Tell in detail the story of the Witch of Endor. 

Describe the battle in which Saul and Jonathan perished. 

What estimate do Professors Wild and Phelps place on 
David’s Elegy? 

Where did the historian of Israel find this elegy? 

What is the elegiac rhythm and where is there a perfect 
example of it? 

Write in your notebooks a description of the elegiac strain 
that runs through David’s Elegy. 

How is the effect of power produced in this poem? 

Read the elegy aloud, seeking to produce the effect in¬ 
tended by the author. 

What are the main teachings of the poem? 

Write four lines of David’s Elegy that are more beautiful 
than the four lines quoted from Tennyson’s InMemoriam. 

What is one explanation of the more beautiful philosophy 
of life in Browning’s Saul than in David’s Elegy? 


Chapter XXIII 

HOW JERUSALEM BECAME THE HOLY CITY 

Bringing the ark to the city. 2 Samuel 6. 

A parallel account in Chronicles. 1 Chronicles 13 and 15. 

The anthem at the gate. Psalm 24:7-10. 

1. Historical Introduction. 

For more than seven years David had been king 
at Hebron, having authority over Judah alone. 

This authority had been greatly limited by the 
powerful and hostile Philistines, who were near 
neighbors. After the death of Saul and of Saul’s 
son, the northern tribes asked David to rule also 
over them. This gave David a large territory and 

a kingdom capable of taking a place among the 

nations of the Orient. 

The capture of Jerusalem from the Jebusites (2 
Sam. 5:6-10) gave David a city suitable for his 
capital. The possession of this city was the be¬ 
ginning of a new epoch in the history of the 

Hebrews, and in the history of humanity. A won¬ 
derful succession of events, recalled to our minds 
by the names of Solomon, Isaiah, Nebuchadrezzar, 
Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, Pompey, the 
Crusaders, and General Allenby, has thrown a halo 
around Jerusalem so that we now call it the Holy 
City. The whole world respected General Allenby 
when in December, 1917, upon taking possession of 
the city for the Allies, he went in through the gates 
on foot and with head uncovered. 

After taking possession of the city, David had a 

125 


126 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


tent erected in which to place the Ark, the holy 
symbol of Israel’s faith, but the Ark was in the 
hands of the Philistines. More than twenty years 
before this it had been rashly carried into battle 
and lost. David showed the instincts of a statesman 
as well as the devotion of a religious man by making 
it his first business to dignify his capital by the 
presence of the Ark of God. 

2. The Story of the Return of the Ark. 

David forms a procession of thirty thousand peo¬ 
ple, including soldiers and bands of music, and goes 
to Baal-Judah to bring the Ark to Jerusalem. They 
secure the sacred symbol, and put it upon a new cart 
which is drawn by a yoke of oxen. The procession 
starts back with a blare of trumpets and great re¬ 
joicing on the part of all the people. 

At the threshing floor of Nacon, the oxen stumble 
over a rough place in the road and the Ark seems 
likely to tip over. Uzzah hastily puts up his hand to 
steady it, but no sooner does he touch the holy symbol 
than he falls dead. In great fear, David removes the 
Ark to a house nearby and the procession returns 
in silence and superstitious dread to Jerusalem. 

Three months later, upon hearing that the house 
where the Ark was had been greatly blessed, David 
renews his effort to secure the sacred symbol. This 
time by the advice of the priests, the Ark is carried 
on staves by Levites. After the procession advances 
six paces with the Ark and no fatalities occur, a 
sacrifice is offered. Moulton suggests that it would 
have been very appropriate for the choirs to have 
sung Psalm 30 at this point. 

When the procession reaches the base of the hill 


HOW JERUSALEM BECAME THE HOLY CITY 127 

on which Jerusalem rests, another halt is made, so 
Moulton suggests, and Psalm 24 :l-6 is chanted. 
Then at the top of the hill, close to the gate of the 
city, a formal ceremony is enacted. One choir is 
stationed within the city gates and another without, 
and they chant antiphonally Psalm 24:7-10. 

First Choir (outside the gates) : 

Lift up your heads, O ye gates; 

And be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, 

And the King of glory will come in. 

Second Choir (inside the closed gates): 

Who is the King of glory? 

First Choir: 

Jehovah, strong and mighty, 

Jehovah, mighty in battle. 

Lift up your heads, O ye gates; 

Yea, lift them up, ye everlasting doors; 

And the King of glory will come in. 

Second Choir: 

Who is this King of glory? 

First Choir: 

Jehovah of hosts, 

He is the King of glory. 

At the phrase “Jehovah of hosts,” which proved 
to be the watchword, the gates open and the pro¬ 
cession moves with the Ark to the sacred tent where 
the symbol of God’s presence is reverently installed. 

The parallel account in Chronicles, written 300 
years later, adds some interesting details to the 
story. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Why is Jerusalem called the Holy City? 

Tell the story of the installation of the Ark in Jerusalem. 
Write in your notebooks items added to 2 Samuel 6 by 
Chronicles 13 and 15. 


128 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


Write a verse from Psalm 30 which is especially appropriate 
in connection with the sacrifice at the beginning of the 
second attempt to restore the Ark. 

Write a verse from Psalm 24:1-6, appropriate to this oc¬ 
casion. 

Was David wise in inaugurating religious ceremonies in his 
realm ? 

Is the observance of form necessary to the preservation of 
religion ? 


Chapter XXIV 

THE INGRATITUDE OF A ROYAL SON 

Absalom's rebellion. II Samuel 15:1-18:33. 

1. Introduction. The Testimony of Hall Caine. 

This is a most illuminating story and contains 
the materials and suggestions for an interesting his¬ 
torical novel. Its character studies, its mention of 
famous places, and its allusions to the national his¬ 
tory make it one of the most important descriptions 
in the Old Testament. Some Hall Caine should use 
it in writing a novel. McClure’s Magazine contains 
the testimony of Hall Caine to the suggestiveness 
of the Bible to the writer of fiction: “There is no 
book in the world like it (the Bible), and the finest 
novels ever written fall far short in interest of any 
of the stories it tells. Whatever strong situations 
I have in my books are not of my creation, but are 
taken from the Bible. The Deemster is the story 
of the Prodigal Son. The Bondman is the story 
of Esau and Jacob. The Scapegoat is the story 
of Eli and his sons, but with Samuel as a little girl; 
and The Manxman is the story of David and Uriah.” 

2. A Type of the Biblical Short Story. 

This story of Absalom may be considered as a 
typical example of the short story. It is surprising 
when one comes to think of it how many such stories 
there are in our Bible, and how great is their liter¬ 
ary beauty. Professor Wild says of them, “Two 

129 


130 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


elements are quite apparent, namely, simplicity and 
earnestness of purpose which brings in the zest of 
enthusiasm. Add to this, beauty and rhythm of 
style and an almost perfect story is accomplished. 
This rhythmical, poetical element is especially ap¬ 
parent in biblical stories.” 

A good short story usually has a hero, a char¬ 
acter in opposition, and supporting friends on either 
side. Read the fine characterization of the persons 
in the story of Absalom in the following passages: 
David the hero is described in 2 Sam. 15:30; 15:24, 
25; 18:5, 29-33. Absalom, the villain, is finely set 
forth in 15 :l-6, and in other parts of the story. As 
examples of the author’s treatment of the other 
characters, study Ittai (15:19-23), Hushai (15:32- 
37; 17:6-13), Ahithophel (16:23; 17:23). 

3. The Development of the Plot. 

Students of the Bible are so unaccustomed to ap¬ 
proach the text in this way that it is well to analyze 
the plot of the rebellion of Absalom quite minutely 
in order to call attention to the large number of 
incidents and characters in the story. It is sug¬ 
gested that the class prepare to tell the story by 
the following outline. 

1. Absalom gains popular favor. 15:1 

2. The strong conspiracy at Hebron. 15:7-12 

3. David forsakes his capital. 15:13-18 

4. Ittai, the loyal follower. 15:19-24 

5. David’s self-denying refusal to take the Ark. 15:24-30 

6. Hushai’s secret mission. 15:32-37 

7. Ziba’s present. 16:1-4 

8. Shimei curses David. 16:4-14 

9. Success of Hushai’s mission. 16:15-17:14 

10. The messengers elude Absalom’s officers. 17:15-22 


THE INGRATITUDE OF A ROYAL SON 131 

11. David’s warm reception by the inhabitants of Mahan- 
aim. 17:24-29 

12. The battle between the forces of David and Absalom. 
18:1-8 

13. Tragic death of Absalom. 18:9-18 

14. Tidings of the battle. 18:19-32 

15. David’s grief. 18:33-19:4 

16. Joab rebukes David. 19:5-8 

4. Outside Readings. 

An interesting parallel to David’s grief over the 
death of Absalom is found in Priam’s lament over 
Hector in Homer’s Iliad, Book XII, 11, lines 414 to 
430. 

The storm scene in Shakespeare’s King Lear may 
be read in connection with 2 Samuel 15:23, 30. See 
also The Death of Absalom by N. P. Willis. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Name several other writers of fiction besides Hall Caine 
who have found suggestions for their stories in the Bible. 

Name several short stories in the Bible. 

What constitutes a good short story? 

Study each incident in the story of Absalom and be able to 
give the substance of it when the title is named. 

Discuss the question whether David or Absalom is the hero of 
this story. 

Granting that Absalom had the good motive of making 
more efficient the administration of justice in his father’s 
kingdom, does that justify his rebellion; in other words, 
does the end justify the means? Compare Matthew 4:8-10. 

How did David’s family ties threaten to interfere with the 
best interests of the state? See 18:33-19:8. 

Give original examples from history or current life of the 
bad influence on the state of family favoritism. 


Chapter XXV 

THE EPIC OP JEROBOAM 

The luxury and oppressions of King Solomon. I Kings 
4:21-28; 5:13-18; 10:26-11:11. 

Promotion of Jeroboam, the day-laborer. I Kings 11:26-28. 

The rending of the garment and a prophecy. I Kings 
11:29-39. 

Jeroboam rebels and flees. I Kings 11:40. 

A declaration of independence. I Kings 12:1-20. 

1. Historical Setting. 

Jeroboam was one of the common people that 
suffered oppression in the reign of the luxury-loving 
Solomon, who has been compared with Louis XIV 
in France. In his desire to rival neighboring na¬ 
tions in maintaining a brilliant court, Solomon 
assembled a large harem of women, of high rank 
or beautiful, and gathered in Jerusalem a large 
group of noble families, whose expenses were paid 
by the state. Horses, chariots, a large standing 
army, beautiful buildings, the royal entertainment 
of foreign and native guests, a household and palace 
retinue whose members ran into the thousands—all 
involved much labor and great expense. The king 
and the nobility revelled in luxury, while the masses 
suffered from poverty and forced labor. As Louis 
XIV planted the seeds that bore fruit in the French 
Revolution, so Solomon developed a system of social 
injustice that culminated in the rupture of the 
Hebrew monarchy. In this social and political 
revolution, Jeroboam, the hero of this chapter, bore 
a leading part. 


132 


THE EPIC OF JEROBOAM 


133 


2. The Septuagint adds to our Knowledge of Jero¬ 

boam. 

The Hebrew historians in their natural desire to 
extol the great King Solomon have given scant 
space to the day laborer who became a boss-work¬ 
man, and a factor in disrupting the kingdom. We 
welcome, therefore, three new items of information 
from the Septuagint, the invaluable Greek transla¬ 
tion of the- Old Testament, used by Jesus and his 
disciples, which was completed about 100 B. C. 
This translation states that Jeroboam had an ignoble 
birth in an obscure place in northern Israel, that 
he was leader in a labor-strike in Jerusalem, organ¬ 
izing in connection with it a force of 300 chariots, 
and that in Egypt he married a sister of the Phar¬ 
aoh. 

3. The Story of the Rending of the Garment. 

One evening when the young labor boss, Jero¬ 
boam, was walking in a field outside the city of 
Jerusalem, he met an aged prophet, Ahijah. Now 
the prophet was wearing a new garment and to the 
astonishment of Jeroboam he rent the garment into 
twelve pieces, declaring that the kingdom of Solo¬ 
mon should be thus rent and ten tribes given to 
Jeroboam. This symbolic act appealed to the young 
man’s ambitions and strengthened his opposition to 
the social injustice of Solomon. 

4. The Declaration of Independence of the North¬ 

ern Tribes. 

When Solomon’s foolish young son, Rehoboam, 
came to the throne, and went to Shechem in the 
north to receive the homage of the ten tribes, the 


134 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


representatives of these tribes met him with a 
demand for better conditions of life for the common 
people. Rehoboam unwisely assumed a manner 
even more autocratic than Solomon, and thereby 
lost more than half of his kingdom. The northern 
tribes rebelled, sent for Jeroboam, and made him 
king at Shechem. 

5. The Teachings. 

Solomon disregarded the principle of social jus¬ 
tice, stated so clearly in the remarkable verse in the 
prophecy of Micah (6:8). Theodore Roosevelt as 
a modern ruler stood in contrast with Solomon. 
Recall his acts as president with reference to (1) 
his personal relations with all classes and races; 
(2) oppressive monoplies in coal and other necessi¬ 
ties on which the people were dependent; (3) the 
improvement of the living conditions of the farmers 
of the nation. 

Jeroboam’s rise from the ranks, and Rehoboam’s 
loss of power, are excellent examples of the use and 
misuse of opportunity on the part of young men. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Compare the reign of King Solomon with that of Louis XIV 
in France. 

What does the Septuagint contribute to our knowledge of 
Jeroboam? 

Write in your notebook a brief essay on the Septuagint. 
You will find material for this in any cyclopoedia or Bible 
dictionary. 

Tell in detail the story of the rending of the garment, pre¬ 
fixing an imaginary account of the circumstances. 

Write a brief statement of the career of Jeroboam from his 
humble birth in northern Israel until his call to become 
king. 


THE EPIC OF JEROBOAM 


135 


Give in detail an account of the Declaration of Independence 
of the ten tribes. 

What great principle did Solomon and his son disregard and 
thus bring on the disruption of the kingdom? (See 
Micah 6:8) Memorize the verse. 

Name one or more modern parallels to the career of Jero¬ 
boam. 

What is the influence of wealth and luxurious surroundings 
on youth? Was Rehoboam wholly responsible for his 

failure ? 


Part 6 

LITERARY SELECTIONS FROM THE PERIOD 
OF THE TWO RIVAL KINGDOMS FROM 
937 TO 586 B. C. 


Chapter XXVI 
THE ELIJAH CYCLE 

On Mount Carmel. I Kings 18:17-40. 

The still, small voice. I Kings 19:1-14. 

Naboth’s vineyard. I Kings 21. 

1. Elijah, Forerunner of the Bookmaking Prophets. 

The meteor-like appearances of Elijah give to the 
cycle of stories which have clustered about his name 
an element of mystery and power. Elijah was a 
speaking prophet, giving his. message in a few 
words which were indelibly impressed on his 
hearers. He reminds us of John the Baptist, not 
only in his character, but also in his mission as a 
forerunner. Elijah prepared the way for the won¬ 
derful regime of the great prophets like Amos and 
Isaiah. He was the herald of the principles of social 
justice. 

This strange son of the desert deeply stirred the 
imagination of men by his dramatic deeds and his 
apparent control of the destinies of men. Soon after 
his death (approximately 850 B. C.) anecdotes about 
his amazing career were gathered together and 

handed down to successive generations. They form 

136 



THE ELIJAH CYCLE 


137 


a large part of 1 Kings 17 to 2 Kings 2. “ These 

stories take us through thrilling adventures, pro¬ 
ceeding from climax to climax.” 

From the Elijah Cycle we select three scenes 
which are typical of the career of this wild, solitary, 
and romantic character. 

2. The Scene on Mount Carmel. 

God had sent a drought upon the land because of 
the worship of the Tyrian Baal, which had been in¬ 
troduced by the imperious and wicked wife of Ahab. 
Paradise Lost alludes to this god and his female 
counterpart in the following terms: 

For those the race of Israel oft forsook 
Their Living Strength, and unfrequented left 
His righteous altar, bowing lowly down 
To bestial gods; for which their heads, as low 
Bowed down in battle, sunk before the spear 
Of despicable foes. 

The national distress brought Ahab to consult with 
the prophet of God. Elijah proposed a test to show 
whether God or Baal was worthy to be worshipped. 
Read the narrative in its three phases: the challenge, 
18:2-24; failure of the prophets of Baal, 25-29; the 
vindication of Jehovah, 30-39. Note in the prayer 
of Elijah (vv. 36-37) the literary values of simplic¬ 
ity, humility, conviction, and purpose. 

3. The Still, Small Voice. 

The New Century Bible says: “Elijah is made to 
realize the presence of God in an experience which 
for grandeur and depth of conception could hardly 
be surpassed in literature. The Lord passes by 
arrayed in the terrors of storm, earthquake, and 
fire; but none of these brings home to the prophet 
the immediate sense of God. It is only in the audi- 


138 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


ble stillness which succeeds the fire that he feels the 
mysterious attraction of the Divine, and, wrapping 
his face in his mantle, comes forth to the entrance 
of the cave.” The student should put in his own 
words the three picturesque scenes of this incident: 
(1) verses 1-3, The angry queen and the despairing 
prophet; (2) verses 4-7, Under the juniper tree; (3) 
verses 9a, 12 to 14, Experiences in the mountain 
cave. 


4. Naboth’s Vineyard. 


Here is a lecture on social justice, put into story 
form. Read the story by the following outline: 


I Kings 21:1-4, 
5-10, 
11-13, 
14-16, 
17-24, 


Naboth refuses to sell his home. 

Jezebel has a plan to get the vineyard. 
Naboth falsely accused in court. 

Ahab takes possession of the vineyard. 
Elijah curses Ahab and foretells Jezebel’s 
terrible death. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Compare Elijah with John the Baptist. 

Did Elijah write an account of his own life; if not, how 
did the record of his career become a part of our Old 
Testament ? 

What religious crisis forms the background of the scene on 
Mount Carmel? 

Describe the scene on Mount Carmel in its three phases. 

What four literary and religious values has the prayer of 
Elijah in verses 36 and 37? 

Describe the three scenes in the episode of the “still, small 
voice. ’ ’ 

Repeat the story of Naboth’s Vineyard. 

Memorize I Kings 19: 11, 12. 

Read Whittier’s What the Voice Said in connection with 
this chapter. 

What oratorio is based on the subject of this chapter? 
Bring to the class quotations from the oratorio that illus¬ 
trate its use of biblical passages. 


CHAPTER XXYII 

THE PROPHET IN KING’S COURTS 

Saving a Syrian general. II Kings 5:1-19. 

Winning a victory for Israel. II Kings 6:8-23. 

Making a king in Damascus. II Kings 8:7-15. 

Anointing Jehu king. II Kings 9:1-13. 

The arrows of victory. II Kings 13:14-17. 

1. Introduction. The Contrast between Elijah and 
Elisha. 

The stories about Elisha are so often alluded to 
in modern literature that students should seek to 
know them well. Elisha was very different from 
Elijah. Elisha was the friend and counselor of 
many kings, and a social and friendly person, while 
Elijah was solitary, the enemy of kings, and a repre¬ 
sentative of the condemning and terrifying spirit of 
justice. 

William Lyon Phelps, in his Human Nature in the 
Bible, says of Elisha: 

He is one of the grandest figures in Hebrew history. His 
importance and influence are marked by the extraordinary 
number of miracles he performed; his career was filled 
with amazing adventures. He must have found life tre¬ 
mendously interesting, for there was scarcely a day with¬ 
out excitement. Although his personality lacks the roman¬ 
tic gloom enveloping the lonely figure of Elijah, the dis¬ 
ciple became more powerful than his teacher, exerting a 
deep influence on both Israelites and aliens. Seldom has 
so distinguished a career been told in so few words; the 
sayings and deeds of Elisha are immortal both in litera¬ 
ture and in their moral influence; yet his entire biography 
covers only a dozen chapters in the Bible. The first meet¬ 
ing of Elijah and Elisha is charming. The former had 

139 


140 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


left the cave where he had listened to the still small voice, 
and had walked directly to a great farm. There he found 
Elisha, the son of Shaphat, plowdng with twelve yoke of 
oxen before him, and he with the twelfth. Does this mean 
that the young man was driving twenty-four oxen in 
pairs before the plow? If so, he must have been a more 
skillful driver than Ben-Hur, and the soil must have been 
tougher than the Puritans found in New England. 

2. Saving a Syrian General. 

Henry Van Dyke has dramatized this story of 
Naarnan in his House of Rimmon, which students 
should read in connection with this chapter. He 
gives much space in his drama to the little Hebrew 
maid who saved Naarnan’s life, and describes the 
Syrian general as a noble character with a fine spirit 
of worship. He makes Naarnan say, 

Grant me a portion of the blessed soil 
Of this most favored land where I have found 
His mercy; in Damascus w T ill I build 
An altar to his name, and praise Him there 
Morning and night. 

Arrange the Bible story in five scenes: (1) 5:1-4, 
Palace in Damascus; (2) 5-8, Consternation in the 
palace at Samaria; (3) 10-12, Naarnan before the 
cottage of Elisha; (4) 13, 14, By the river Jordan; 
(5) 15-19, A new altar. 

3. Winning a Victory for Israel. 

In this incident the outstanding facts are: Syria 
with its capital at Damascus is at war with Israel, 
of which the capital was Samaria; the curious 
deliverance of Israel from time to time, which the 
king of Syria suspects was due to treachery; the 
thwarting of the night attempt to capture Elisha; 
and the bloodless victory secured by Elisha. 

Special attention should be called to the art of 


THE PROPHET IN KING’S COURT 141 

the writer in making such skillful use of the element 
of surprise. See verses 12, 17, 22. 

4. Making a King in Damascus. 

The healing of Naaman must have given Elisha 
a great reputation in Damascus. Observe the ex¬ 
pensive gifts which the king at Damascus made to 
Elisha on the occasion of the latter’s visit to the 
city. It is difficult to explain Elisha’s power over 
the destiny of the royal house of Damascus, or, if 
you prefer, his foresight and power of predicting 
future events. 

5. The Anointing of Jehu. 

Jehu, the captain of a company of Israelites 
guarding Israel’s frontier at Ramoth-Gilead, is sit¬ 
ting before his tent after the evening meal. A 
messenger, sent by the prophet Elisha, comes run¬ 
ning to him, asks him to step inside the tent, and 
there anoints him as the next king of Israel. The 
messenger then gives Jehu a charge to destroy the 
whole house of Ahab, and disappears as mysterious¬ 
ly as he came. 

6. The Arrows of Victory. 

This is the last scene in the life of the patriot- 
prophet. The king of Israel himself has come to 
the little white cottage near Samaria to visit Elisha 
in his illness. He praises the prophet and pays him 
a great tribute. Elisha, thus called back for a 
moment to the thoughts of his beloved country, for 
which he has worked and planned through over fifty 
years of strenuous activity, asks that the window of 
his room, looking toward Damascus, be opened, 


142 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


places his hands upon those of the king, and bids 
his royal master shoot the Lord’s arrow of victory. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Contrast Elijah and Elisha. 

What tribute does William Lyon Phelps pay to Elisha. 

Tell the story of Naaman. 

Write in your notebooks an outline of II Kings 6:8-23. 

How does the author use the element of surprise in this 
story? 

Picture Elisha’s reception at Damascus. 

Write an outline of Jehu’s career, as you find it in different 
parts of the Old Testament. 

Describe in detail the last scene in the life of Elisha. 

Find in the story of Naaman two examples of the importance 
of little things in determining the destiny of a life. 

What is the meaning of the symbol of the “ horses and 
chariots” in II Kings 6:17? 

What did king Joash mean by his statement in II Kings 
13:14, “my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen 
thereof ’ 

From Milton’s Paradise Lost, Book 1, write in your note¬ 
books a quotation of ten lines concerning the leper Naa¬ 
man, worshipper of the god Rimmon. 


Chapter XXVIII 

ISAIAH, THE YOUNG PROPHET AND POET 

The story of his call. Isaiah 6. 

Parable of the vineyard. Isaiah 5:1-7. 

A psalm of triumph. Psalm 46. 

1. The New Epoch in Literature and Religion. 

Between the middle of the eighth and sixth cen¬ 
turies before Christ, a galaxy of orators and writers 
appeared that has not been surpassed in literary 
brilliancy and historical effectiveness in any equal 
period in human history. Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and 
Micah were the first men to write complete books in 
Israel; they were the first to break away from the 
ritualistic religion of the ancients; and they laid 
the foundations of Christianity and of modern 
thought about God, man’s religious duty, and the 
ideals of social justice. 

In the thought of the world, Isaiah stands out 
above all these prophets as the greatest leader in 
religion and literature before the time of Christ. 
Bewer says; “The splendor of his diction, the 
wealth of his imagery, the amazing variety of his 
style, now grand and majestic, powerful and sweep¬ 
ing, now gentle and sweet, moving as if full of silent 
tears, mark him out as the prince of Hebrew orators. 
But he was greater than his style and his words. 
He had penetrated through outward appearances to 
the underlying reality, had seen the One who directs 
all movements of history, had understood His char¬ 
acter and purpose, and thus was enabled to inter- 

143 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


J44 

pret Him to his people and to unfold His plan in the 
events of the nations.’’ 

2. The Story of Isaiah’s Call. 

The young man who was to play so great a part 
in Israel’s life was called to his high service by a 
great national loss. It was announced one morning 
that the king was dead. Jerusalem was deeply 
moved, even as England was at the death of Queen 
Victoria. Among the throng that filled the palace 
to pay the last tribute of respect before the bier of 
the dead sovereign was the patriotic young Jew, 
Isaiah, who was himself of noble lineage, and possi¬ 
bly a relative of the king. 

From the palace Isaiah, burdened with the sense 
of tragedy and with the feeling that his little nation 
was now passing through a crisis, went to the temple 
to pray. Then his call came to him in a remarkable 
vision which he wrote out, years later, and which 
we now find in chapter 6 of his prophecies. A. R. 
Gordon, in The Prophets of the Old Testament, gives 
a good description of the vision. 

As he prayed, the outward symbolism of worship vanished, 
and the eternal realities themselves were unveiled before 
his spiritual imagination. In the holy place, w r here the 
Ark stood as the emblem of the Divine, he now saw the 
Lord Jahweh seated as King upon a throne “high and 
lifted up,” beyond all contact with human imperfection 
and sin, the skirts of His flowing robes filling the Temple 
— in other words, His royal presence permeating the 
santuary and going out thence to bless and gladden the 
world. Around His throne the choirs that pealed out their 
joyous music in the Temple seemed now transformed into 
shining companies of seraphim, whose voices were raised 
in responsive chorus: 

Holy, holy, holy is Jahweh of hosts; 

The whole earth is full of His glory. 


ISAIAH, THE YOUNG PROPHET AND POET 145 


But not by lip alone did these bright spirits minister to 
their King. Each one had six wings—two to cover his 
face, in token of reverence, two to cover his ‘‘feet” (the 
lower parts of his body), a delicate suggestion of purity, 
and two for flight, to speed on His Divine commissions 
“ o ’er land and ocean without rest ’ ’—the three pairs thus 
finely symbolizing the threefold worship that God loves and 
expects of His children—reverence, purity and service. 
The sight of such transcendent holiness, Isaiah could not 
yet endure. In his nervous dread the very foundations of 
the threshold seemed to shake beneath him, and a great 
cloud arose to obstruct his gaze—the darkness of his own 
impurity showing thick and black before the dazzling 
radiance of God’s glory. And for the moment he felt 
himself undone. 1 ‘ Woe is me! for I am undone; because 
I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell amidst a people 
of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, even 
Jahweh of hosts.” 

Visions have been characteristic of great religious 
leaders. Paul, Savonarola, Luther, and Christ (in 
the wilderness) had mental experiences which they 
afterwards described to their followers in words that 
moved them to action. Isaiah’s call as given in chap¬ 
ter 6 had several elements that are typical: he had a 
vision of God, a sense of his unworthiness and of 
God’s forgiving love; he saw the needs of humanity, 
and then, in a self-denying spirit, volunteered for 
service. 

3. The Parable of the Vineyard. 

Isaiah’s personality, oratorical ability, and unu¬ 
sual poetic gift enabled him to make a deep impres¬ 
sion on his generation; but the most surprising 
thing to us is the wide variety of methods which he 
used in seeking to influence public opinion. We see 
him preaching a wonderful sermon from the tem¬ 
ple steps as in chapter 2, or carrying through the 
streets of Jerusalem a great poster inscribed, 


146 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


“Speed, spoil, hurry, prey” as in chapter 8, or fear¬ 
lessly rebuking the king and the court in a public 
place as in chapter 7, or “walking naked and bare¬ 
foot” as in chapter 20, or chanting the words of his 
message, set to a popular song, as in chapter 5. 

This parable of the vineyard in chapter 5 was 
given in some big vineyard near the city or perhaps 
in the city square, in the time of the grape harvest. 
We can imagine how easily a crowd was gathered 
in those ancient days when there was so little to 
attract attention. Isaiah chants his parable, and, 
when the people have become interested, he applies 
the warning it contains directly to the crowd. By 
a most effective play on words, he made the lesson 
stick in their memory. 

For the vineyard of Yahweh of hosts is the house of Israel, 
and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: 

And He looked for justice (mishpat), but behold oppression 
(mispah), for righteousness (sedhakah), but behold a 
cry (seakah). 

4. A Psalm of Triumph. 

This psalm has been frequently credited to Isaiah 
and is very appropiate to one of the great occasions 
of his life. In 701 B. C. Sennacherib, king of Assy¬ 
ria, invaded Palestine and threatened to destroy 
utterly Judah and Jerusalem. Two hundred thous¬ 
and strong, and with a reputation of reckless cruel¬ 
ty, this army inspired terror in the hearts of all the 
Hebrews. The officers demanded that the gates of 
Jerusalem be opened, but Hezekiah delayed and 
asked counsel of the prophet Isaiah. The prophet 
prayed for guidance himself, and then assured Hez¬ 
ekiah that God would save the city. Next morning, 
it was found that a plague had destroyed much of 


ISAIAH, THE YOUNG PROPHET AND POET 147 

the enemy’s forces and had frightened the rest 
away. See a full account in 2 Kings 18:13-19:37, 
and the parallel account in Chronicles, and also in 
Isaiah 37. An Assyrian tablet has been discovered 
which seems to verify this remarkable story of the 
destruction of the army. 

Psalm 46 was chanted by the choirs, as a great 
procession went to the temple to celebrate this ex¬ 
traordinary deliverance of the city. 

God is our refuge and strength 
A very present help in trouble. 

This psalm is very symmetrical having three stan¬ 
zas of equal length, the last stanzas being followed 
by the refrain, 

Jehovah of hosts is with us, 

The God of Jacob is our refuge. 

This refrain is missing from the first stanza and 
without doubt was dropped accidentally in the pro¬ 
cess of transmission. 

The religious teachings of this psalm are many 
and helpful. Perhaps the most unusual is that con¬ 
tained in verse 4, which is a figure of God’s grace 
based on the channel of water that flowed into Jeru¬ 
salem from a spring outside and upon which the 
whole city depended in time of siege. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Describe the importance of Isaiah as one of the leaders in 
a new epoch of literature and religion. 

What was the occasion of the call of Isaiah? 

Describe that call and mention the four most important el¬ 
ements in it. 

Do you think that Isaiah was in a state of trance, or are we 
to interpret chapter 6 as a figurative description of a 
mental experience? 


148 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


Name some of the strange methods which Isaiah used in his 
public work. 

How do we know that Isaiah 5 is a parable? 

Write in your notebooks an analysis of the parable and 
make the application to the life of the people. 

From II Kings 18:13-19:37, write in your notebooks the 
historical setting of Psalm 46. 

Show how each stanza of the psalm fits the historical sit¬ 
uation. 

Make a list of the figures of speech in the psalm. 

Explain the religious message of verse 4. 

What elements of Isaiah’s call to service enter the exper¬ 
ience of a Student Volunteer? 


Part 7 


LITERARY SELECTIONS WITH THE BABY¬ 
LONIAN EXILE AS A BACKGROUND 


Chapter XXTX 
THE POETRY OF HOPE 

Comfort for the exiles. Isaiah 4:2-6. 

A song of hope. Psalms 42 and 43. 

1. There is a striking- Difference between the Bible 
and Pag-an Literature. 

The Bible writers were full of hope for the future 
while the Greek and Roman writers believed that 
the world was growing worse every year. “No 
more precious legacy of thought has come down to 
us from antiquity than this Hebrew conception of 
a golden age to come. It is difficult to overestimate 
the bracing moral influence of an ideal future. The 
classic thought of Greece and Rome took an opposite 
course; their age of gold was in the remote past; 
the progress of time was a decline.” (Modern 
Header’s Bible) 

Two examples from Rome are given here. 

Juvenal wrote, “A ninth age of the world is ours, 
in wickedness greater than that of iron ’ 7 ; and 
Horace declared, 

“Our fathers, worse in their day than our grand- 
sires, 


149 



150 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


Begot us a still more degenerate race; 

And soon will a worse brood than we are succeed 
us.” 

We have reason to be grateful that Browning, 
Tennyson, Alfred Noyes, and other modern poets 
who know the Bible so intimately have been domi¬ 
nated by this element of hope. Two selections from 
Browning will illustrate this. 

I find earth not gray, but rosy, 

Heaven not grim but fair of hue; 

Do I stoop I pick a posy, 

Do I stand and stare? all’s blue. 

My own hope is, a sun will pierce 
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched; 

That after Last returns the First, 

Though a wide compass round be fetched; 

That what began best can’t end worst, 

Nor what God blest once prove accurst. 

2. Comfort for the Exiles. 

Prom the many messages of hope in the Old Tes¬ 
tament we select for this chapter one from Second 
Isaiah and one from an unknown poet of the exile. 
Israel has been away from the beautiful temple and 
the Holy City for many years. In Babylon the Jews 
find themselves among a rich and properous heathen 
population; polytheism with its gorgeous temples 
and magnificent worship is disheartening to the 
faithful Israelites. They frequently hear the mock¬ 
ing heathen say, “Where is now their God?” As 
the years pass by, many Jews yield to the tempta¬ 
tion to adopt the Babylonian customs, including the 
religion; but a remnant in Israel remains faithful, 
and to them the Great Unknown Prophet of the 
exile comes with this wonderful message in Isaiah 


THE POETRY OF HOPE 


151 


4:2-6. He promises that a day shall come when 
their broken nation shall be restored to its old-time 
glory and happiness. The homeland shall again 
become fruitful and be under the special protection 
of the only true God. 

This passage is called Messianic, because it forms 
a part of that famous group of foreshadowings of 
the future, examples of which are found in Isaiah 
2:2-4; 7:14; 9:6,7; 11:1-9; Micah 5:2. These pro¬ 
phecies unite two great expectations: the coming of 
a perfect kingdom of God on earth, and the appear¬ 
ance of a personal Messiah. Observe that “branch” 
and the “escaped of Israel” in Isaiah 4:2 refer 
respectively to the people of Judah, and the exiles 
who have returned from Babylon. 

3. A Song of Hope. 

In some way unknown to us one poem with the 
keynote “Hope thou in God,” and with the same 
theme, style, and spirit throughout, has been divided 
in our Psalter into Psalms 42 and 43. Probably the 
division took place at an early date for the purpose 
of the temple worship. It is divided into three 
parts by the refrain, 

Why art thou cast down, 0 ray soul? 

Why art thou disquieted within me? 

Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him, 

Who is the help of my countenance and my God. 

This poem is notable for its striking figures of 
speech (see 42:1,2,3,7) and for its tone of hope, 
maintained under most depressing conditions. In 
verse 1 there is a perfect example of progressive or 
synthetic parallelism, in which the second line builds 
up the thought of the first, giving an additional 


152 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


thought on the same note. An element of pathos 
appears in 42 :6,7, where the poet calls to mind the 
familiar hills, which were the last thing visible as he 
was going into exile, and the noise of their water¬ 
falls which still resounded in his ears. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Describe and explain the hopefulness of the Bible writers 
in contrast with classic authors of Greece and Rome. 

Memorize one of the quotations from Browning. 

Picture the historical background of the two selections in 
this chapter. 

Why is Isaiah 4:2-6 called Messianic? 

Make a study of passages from Isaiah and Micali listed in 
point 2 and write in your notebooks the prophecies which 
describe the coming kingdom and in a separate list those 
that predict the coming of the Messiah. 

Make the attempt to arrange in verse form Isaiah 4:2-6. 

Give the evidence that Psalms 42 and 43 originally formed 
one poem. 

Give in your notebooks an example of a figure of speech and 
a progressive parallelism. 

Show that the same thought is continued through the poem. 

How is the optimism of the Hebrews illustrated in both the 
selections of this chapter? 

Compare the worth of the optimistic and pessimistic views 
of life. 

Read Mathew Arnold’s Dover Beach as a classic example of 
the latter. 


Chapter XXX 

SOME ADVENTURES OF DANIEL AT THE 
BABYLONIAN COURT 

Three conscientious objectors. Daniel 1. 

The feast of Belshazzar. Daniel 5. 

Daniel in the lion’s den. Daniel 6. 

1. Historical Setting*. 

In studying wonderful old stories like these, we 
should distinguish between the circumstances under 
which the stories were first told and the new occa¬ 
sions which influenced the author to put them into 
written form. 

The ancient hero, Daniel, had his remarkable 
visions, according to the traditional view, during 
the Babylonian exile in the years following 597 B. 
C. Modern scholars believe that these visions were 
first put into written form hundreds of years later, 
when the Jews were suffering at the hands of the 
Greeks under Antiochus Epiphanes, who had his 
official residence in Antioch, Syria. These remark¬ 
able experiences of Daniel were written for the en¬ 
couragement and strengthening of the Jews that 
they might endure the awful persecutions without 
giving up their faith in Jehovah. The Greek king 
offered every inducement to the people, the oppor¬ 
tunities of financial gain through trade, of a life 
of pleasure, and of Greek culture, in order to lure 
them from the faith of their fathers. When they 
refused, he levelled the city walls, tortured and 

murdered many of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and 

153 


154 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


made life almost unendurable to the faithful. To 
them the book of Daniel was a great support, and 
was probably a decisive factor in the preservation 
of the Jewish nation. The approximate date of the 
book is 165 B. C. 

2. The Conscientious Objectors. 

Daniel 1 tells the story of four Jewish young men 
of noble birth, fine physique, and good education 
who were selected by the king of Babylon that they 
might be specially trained for high office in his 
court. We should remember how dazzling and at¬ 
tractive the city of Babylon, with its hanging gar¬ 
dens, glittering temples, broad streets, and wonder¬ 
ful canals, plentifully supplied with water by the 
Euphrates, was to boys who had been brought up 
in the little rock-bound city of Jerusalem. It is no 
wonder that they were tempted to be disloyal to 
their own customs when in a great foreign city they 
were offered a chance to prepare for high office in 
the brilliant court of Nebuchadrezzar. Read the 
story, noting the reason for their refusal to eat the 
choice food and to drink the wine from the king’s 
tablet. The real reason was that the food, having 
been offered to idols, would, according to Hebrew 
law, “defile” them. Compare 1 Corinthians 8:1. 

3. The Feast of Belshazzar. 

Cyrus the Great, having conquered the rest of the 
eastern world, came at last to take the city of Baby¬ 
lon. On the very night before the fall of the city, 
the royal family and the nobility with their guests 
had a riotous banquet which is described in Daniel 
5. Heine, in his Belshazzar describes it vividlv. 

7 


ADVENTURES OF DANIEL AT THE BABYLONIAN COURT 155 

The Midnight hour was drawing nigh; 

Babylon slumbered silently. 

But in the palace of the King 
Was flaring light and rioting. 

Aloft there in the monarch's hall 
Belshazzar held high festival. 

His minions sat in gleaming line 
And drained the cups of sparkling wine. 

The King ’s cheeks flame as red as blood, 

And wine hath made him bold of mood, 

And blindly urges him along 
To blaspheme God with impious tongue. 

But scarce was the daring taunt expressed 
Ere secret terror filled the King's breast. 

The strident laughter died away; 

Over all a death-like silence lay. 

And see! and see! on the wall above, 

A ghostly hand begins to move. 

Read the story by the following analysis. 

5 :l-4, Belshazzar and his lords drink to the praise 
of their idols in the Hebrew golden vessels, taken 
from the Temple at Jerusalem. 

5-9, The handwriting on the wall. 

10-12, The queen counsels the calling of Daniel. 

13-16, Belshazzer offers gifts if Daniel will inter¬ 
pret the vision. 

17-30, The interpretation. 

4. Daniel in the Lion’s Den. 

Daniel not only refused to worship according to 
the Babylonian decree, but also kept on praying to 
his own God without any attempt at concealment. 
He courageously met the test of faith, as many have 
done since his day. It is helpful to remember in 
this connection the story of Perpetua and Felicitas 
in the second century, of Savonarola in Italy, and 
Martin Luther in Germany. 

Tell the story, noting the skillful use of the ele- 


156 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


ment of suspense, and the dramatic and vivid char¬ 
acter of the narrative. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

What was the original setting of the stories of Daniel? 

What use of them was later made by the author of our 
present Book of Daniel? 

Write in your notebooks the outline of Daniel 1. 

Explain the refusal of the young men to eat the food from 
the king’s table. 

What military situation makes the Feast of Belshazzar spec¬ 
ially untimely? 

Tell the story of the feast. 

Explain the wide use of this story in the literature of the 
world. 

Look up Edwin Arnold’s Belshazzar’s Feast, Byron’s Vision 
of Belshazzar, and Felicia Heman’s Feast of Belshazzar. 

Write in your notebooks an account of the literary features 
of Daniel in the Lion’s Den. 

Write in your notebooks what you regard as the three most 
important religious teachings in the stories of this chapter. 


Chapter XXXI 


THE SONG OP THE SUFFERING SERVANT 

He hath borne our griefs. Isaiah 52:13-53:12. 

1. Literary Features of the Prophecy. 

In order to appreciate this most remarkable pro¬ 
phetic poem of the Old Testament, it is helpful to 
read it in the translation by George Adam Smith, 
which, with headings prefixed to each stanza, is 
given here. 


My Servant Shall Prosper 

Behold, my Servant shall prosper, 

Shall rise, be lift up, be exceedingly high. 

Like as they that were astonied before thee were many, 
—So marred from a man ’s was his visage, 

And his form from the children of men! — 

So shall the nations he startles be many, 

Before him shall kings shut their mouths. 

For that which had never been told them they see, 

And what they had heard not, they have to consider. 


Who Hath Believed 

Who gave believing to that which we heard, 

And the arm of Jehovah to whom was it bared? 

For he sprang like a sapling before Him, 

As a root from the ground that is parched; 

He had no form nor beauty that we should regard him, 
Nor aspect that we should desire him. 

Despised and rejected of men, 

Man of pains and familiar with ailing, 

And as one we do cover the face from, 

Despised, and we did not esteem him. 

157 


158 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


Surely He Hath Borne 

Surely our ailments he bore, 

And our pains he did take for his burden. 

But we—we accounted him stricken, 

Smitten of God and degraded. 

Yet he—he was pierced for crimes that were ours, 

He was crushed for guilt that was ours, 

The chastisement of our peace was upon him, 

By his stripes healing is ours. 

Of us all like to sheep went astray, 

Every man to his way we did turn, 

And Jehovah made light upon him 
The guilt of us all. 

He Was Oppressed 

Oppressed, he did humble himself, 

Nor opened his mouth— 

As a lamb to the slaughter is led, 

As a sheep ’fore her shearers is dumb— 

Nor opened his mouth. 

By tyranny and law was he taken; 

And of his age who reflected, 

That he was wnenched from the land of the living, 

For My people’s transgressions the stroke was on him? 

So they made with the wicked his grave, 

Yea, with the felon his tomb. 

Though never harm had he done, 

Neither was guile in his mouth. 

Yet It Pleased Jehovah 

But Jehovah had purposed to bruise him, 

Had laid on him sickness; 

So if his life should offer guilt offering, 

A seed he should see, he should lengthen his days. 

And the purpose of Jehovah by his hand should prosper, 
From the travail of his soul shall he see, 

By his knowledge be satisfied. 

My Servant, the Righteous, righteousness wins he for many 
And their guilt he takes for his load. 

Therefore I set him a share with the great, 

Yea, with the strong shall he share the spoil; 

Because that he poured out his life unto death, 

Let himself with transgressors be reckoned; 

Yea, he the sin of the many hath borne, 

And for the transgressors he interposes. 


THE SONG OP THE SUFFERING SERVANT 159 


Someone has said of this poem, “ Words beautiful, 
enthralling words, familiar words, vibrant in tone, 
rich in color, moving in pathos, exalted in diction.” 

Among the many interesting features of these 
verses, note first the increase in the length of the 
successive stanzas, which produces the impression 
of increasing power and solemnity of the thought, 
sweeping forward in the resistless volume of truth. 
Second, the unusual effect produced by the use of 
the pronouns. In the third stanza, for example, 
“our” and “he” are repeatedly used in contrast. 
Third, the style is smooth, flowing, even redundant, 
in contrast with First Isaiah whose language is 
abrupt, brilliant, and terse. 

2. The Historical Background. 

This poem, like every other great piece of litera¬ 
ture, grew out of a deep experience of life. The 
author was born among a group of Hebrews, who 
had been torn away from their own home in Jeru¬ 
salem, and thrown into the midst of a great heathen 
population. 

During fifty years the Hebrews had lived in Baby¬ 
lon where they had been deprived of their religious 
privileges and their political rights. They were 
now misunderstood, despised, and without hope. 
(See Psalm 137 and Isaiah 48:20). Yet, during the 
whole period of exile, that group of people which 
was faithful to the old religion believed that God 
had created Israel for a great purpose. For the 
sake of comforting this group, and strengthening 
them in their high purpose of rebuilding Jerusalem 
and carrying on their great mission, the Second 
Isaiah wrote his prophecy. 


160 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


3. The Message. 

Bewer, in his Literature of the Old Testament says: 

“We cannot cloud the glory of his essential message, which 
is so great that we are still thrilled by it, especially when 
we read those four poems in which he worked out his own 
original contribution with singular beauty and magnanim¬ 
ity, the so-called Poems of the Servant of Yahweh, (Isa. 
42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13-53:12), which we have not 
touched upon so far. Here a profound interpretation of 
Israel’s suffering is given in the light of her mission. The 
problem of innocent suffering is solved by fixing the at¬ 
tention upon its purpose, not upon the reason for it. Israel 
is the servant of Yahweh. He is now despised and crushed, 
without national existence, far from his own land, in exile. 
But he is still Yahweh’s servant, through whom true 
religion is to be established in all the world. It seems 
impossible. All this work in exile must be vain; it means 
but suffering and shame. But no, this very suffering is 
part of Yahweh’s plan! Through it His purpose for the 
world will be accomplished. ’ ’ 

Who is the “Servant” that, as George Adam 
Smith says, haunts this whole prophecy like a ghost? 
No one can answer that question. W. J. Hutchins 
believes: “Neither Israel, nor the Inner Circle of 
Israelites nor yet Jeremiah, tills full the ideal pre¬ 
sented here of the Suffering, Saving Servant of 
Jehovah. The idea that the prophet looked for¬ 
ward consciously down the centuries to the cross 
of Jesus’ death, the garden of his burial, and his 
resurrection, may not perhaps be dogmatically 
denied, yet cannot be defended. But Jesus incar¬ 
nated, enfleslied the ideal of the prophet.” 

While we cannot identify the “Servant,” yet the 
great idea which he personified is clear. “The poet 
of the sixth century before Christ saw the fact, he 
did not seek to explain it,—saw the universal fact 
that he who comes close to God and seeks to do his 
will in service to man will be misunderstood, deemed 


THE SONG OF THE SUFFERING SERVANT 161 

smitten of God, despised and rejected of men. The 
history of civilization—the martyrs of philosophy, 
science, political liberty, as well as of religion, 
declare that the ancient poet saw the deep things of 
life as they are. The great servants of God, 
whether their service has been in the cause of ad¬ 
vancing knowledge or righteousness, have been and 
still must be despised and rejected of men, men of 
sorrows and acquainted with grief. In the lower 
realms of life, animal and human, we may find the 
law of tooth and claw; in the higher realms, the law 
of the soul an offering for sin prevails. This law 
unites man to man and man to God.” (Henry T. 
Fowler) 

This prophet brought comfort and hope to the 
exiles, strengthened their purpose to ‘‘carry on,” 
and promised a leader who should embody their 
high ideals. The New Testament writers saw in 
Jesus Christ a fulfilment of that promise. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Count the number of lines in each stanza of the poem, as 
it is printed in this chapter, and describe the effect pro¬ 
duced by the increase of length of the successive stanzas. 

Study the author’s use of pronouns in the third stanza. 

Quote from the poem two or more of the best progressive 
parallelisms, and tell what the writer gained by using them. 

Find a simile and a metaphor. 

Point out in the third stanza an antithetic parallelism in 
which couplets rather than single lines form a parallelism. 

Write in your notebooks the logical development of thought 
through the stanzas of the poem. 

What was the historical background of this passage of 
Scripture ? 

Why is it not consistent to identify the Servant with the 
Messiah in Isaiah 9:5, 6? 


162 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


What universal fact of human experience is stated in this 
prophecy? 

In what sense did Jesus of Nazareth fulfil the expectations 
of Isaiah 53? 

Write in your notebook the three most important ideas of 
the passage studied in this chapter. 


Part 8 


LITERARY SELECTIONS FROM THE PERSIAN 
AND GREEK PERIODS OF JEWISH HISTORY 


Chapter XXXII 
THE STORY OF JONAH 

The Book of Jonah. Four chapters. 

1. The Historical Setting. 

In the time of Ezra the Jews had become very 
exclusive, and did not wish to admit into their mem¬ 
bership any foreigners. Ezra had brought back 
from Babylon the priestly law, and, in the process 
of reconstructing Jewish life, had driven out from 
Jerusalem the heathen wives of many Jews who, 
without meaning any harm, had married foreign 
women. This harsh measure introduced by Ezra 
had broken up many happy homes. Before long, 
a party of opposition arose, based upon more lib¬ 
eral ideas. It is supposed that one of the liberal 
party wrote the story of Jonah as a protest against 
the narrow ideas of the new legal regime. 

It is probable that the author based his story on 
a reference in 2 Kings 14:25 to a certain prophet 
Jonah, who was associated with King Jeroboam II 
in his wars. Jonah is pictured as a narrow-minded 
nationalist whom God rebukes for his exclusiveness. 

It is instructive to compare the book of Jonah 

163 



164 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


with the book of Ruth, which probably came from 
the same period of history. 

2. The Plot. 

Study the development of the plot by the help of 
the following outline: 

Jonah 1:1, The prophet impressed into service. 

1:3, He eludes responsibility. 

1:4-10, The storm at sea. 

1:11-16, Jonah is thrown overboard. 

1:17-2:10, An amazing rescue. 

3:1-4, Jonah obeys the second command to service. 

3:5-10, Nineveh repents. 

4:1-5, The moping bigot. 

4:6-11, The lesson of the gourd. 

3. The Literary Form. 

Scholars differ in their view of this book. 

“Is the book history? is it an ancient tradition developed 
into a story, largely imaginative? is it a parable or al¬ 
legory? All three views have been maintained; one may 
hold either view that is found convincing, but if one 
loses sight of the conception of God that this book con¬ 
tains, he will never know to what sublime height the 
Old Testament thought rose.” (Henry T. Fowler) 

George Adam Smith calls attention to the diffi¬ 
culty of taking literally such statements as Jonah’s 
rescue by the fish, and the conversion of the great 
city of Nineveh in one day. He calls the story of 
Jonah a parable. 

Jeremiah 51:34,44 suggests the allegorical inter¬ 
pretation of the book: “Babylon hath devoured me, 
he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty ves¬ 
sel, he hath, like a monster, swallowed me up, he 
hath filled his maw with my delicacies; he hath cast 
me out.” And again, “And I will bring forth out 
of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up; and 


THE STORY OF JONAH 


165 


the nations shall not flow any more nnto him.” 
Babylon is here conceived as a great fish that swal¬ 
lowed Israel in the time of the exile, and afterward 
cast the nation out. 

This evidence from Jeremiah is strengthened by 
the fact that the name Jonah means “dove,” and 
was used as a symbolical name for Israel, as in 
Psalm 74:19, “Oh, deliver not thy turtle dove to 
the wild beast.” These usages made it easy for a 
later writer to compose an allegory in which Jonah 
represented Israel, and the great fish stood for Baby¬ 
lon. 

If we do not neglect the wonderful message of 
the book, it does not matter very much which opin¬ 
ion we adopt. The most recent author on the liter¬ 
ature of the Old Testament (Bewer) states his opin¬ 
ion in a rather convincing way*. 

Jonah “was no narrative of historical facts but a prose 
poem with a purpose, and the fish story, far from being 
unique, has turned out to be quite common the world over. 
Such tales of miraculous deliverance, with many variations 
of detail, were told by many peoples; maritime people 
spoke of a huge fish or a sea monster, inland people of 
a wolf or a dragon or bear. And just at Joppa the Greeks 
located the story of Perseus and Andromeda, with his fight 
inside the sea monster. The author took this bit of 
folklore and used it as a means of transporting Jonah back 
to the land. He never thought that readers would be so 
much without poetical imagination as to strip it of its 
fantastic beauty and nullify the wonderful lesson he had 
to teach in the sequel. ’ ’ 

4. The Teaching of Jonah. 

The book of Jonah reaches a loftier height than 
any other book in the Old Testament in the presen¬ 
tation of the love of God for heathen nations. The 
last verse suggests that same broad love of the uni- 


166 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


versal Father which Jesus proclaimed. Professor 
Wild, in her Literary Guide to the Bible, says: 

‘ ‘ This book of Jonah rises to the climax of spiritual vision 
in the Old Testament in its realization of the universal 
character of God’s love. Its theme is the same as the 
famous phrase of Faber’s hymn, i 1 There is a wideness in 
God’s mercy.” Compare this picture of the yearning 
love of God for all peoples with the parables in the 
fifteenth chapter of Luke which represent His intense love 
for the individual, and also with the parable of The Good 
Samaritan which is more of a parallel, in that it pictures 
the breaking down of racial prejudice.” 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

According to the theory presented in this chapter, what two 
religious parties existed in Jerusalem in the time of Ezra? 

What was the purpose of the book of Jonah? 

Tell the story according to the outline given in point 2. 

Name three or four ditferent views concerning the literary 
character of the book. 

Which of these interpretations is supported by the evidence 
from the book of Jeremiah? 

What is the meaning of the name Jonah, and how does that 
affect the interpretation? 

What is the great message of the book? 


Chapter XXXIII 
BIBLICAL NATURE LYRICS 

The thunderstorm. Psalm 29. 

Nature, the garment of God. Psalm 104. 

The voice from the whirlwind. Job 38. 

1. Introduction. The Contrast Between the He¬ 
brews, and the Greeks and Babylonians in the 
Conception of Nature. 

The Hebrews had outgrown the child-like fancies 
of the Greeks and Babylonians. To them “the 
mountains, winds, water, and the stars above, were 
not gods, not peopled with gods or demigods.” The 
Hebrew poets, in their treatment of nature, were 
very much like the poets of the nineteenth century. 
As Wordsworth and Tennyson regarded nature as 
itself living, rather than peopled with spirits, so the 
Hebrews thought of the life in nature as the very 
life of God. 

This attitude to nature, found among the Bible 
writers, will be best understood by those who have 
had certain experiences out of doors. Have you 
ever been on a hillside, just before a great storm? 
There is a hush that all creatures feel. The animals 
are in terror, and the sky is wild and unnatural in 
its yellow glow. With the oncoming of the thunder, 
wind, and rain, the very trees try to hide themselves. 
All nature seems conscious, not because all its as¬ 
pects represent individual gods, as the Greeks 

thought, but because of a presence that permeates 

1(57 


168 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


everything. Wordsworth and the Hebrew poets 
agree in that. 

“And I have felt 

A presence that disturbed me with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 

And the round ocean and the living air, 

And the blue skv, and in the mind of man; 

A motion and a spirit, that impels 

All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 

And rolls through all things. ” 

Almost every phase of the natural world is pic¬ 
tured in the Old Testament: the sun in Psalm 19, 
the green pastures in Psalm 23, the thunderstorm 
in Psalm 29, nature as the garment of God in Psalm 
104, the rain in Psalm 77, and the whirlwind in Job 
38. “ Reverent affection for nature, the recognition 

of it as an avenue of approach to God, is manifest 
in the whole texture and fibre of their literature, 
in single words and phrases, in metaphors and sim¬ 
iles, in the flashes of inspiration which sparkle in 
the midst of other themes.” 

2. The Thunderstorm. 

Imagine the poet standing on the slopes of Mt. 
Hermon, watching the approach of a terrific storm. 
He conceives the thunder to be the very voice of 
God, and this Psalm, indeed, has been called the 
song of the seven thunders. The shower breaks 
with terrible force, tearing great limbs from the 
Lebanon cedars, and the lightning shivers the giant 
oaks. Finally, it disappears across the desert in a 
wind storm, and peace reigns. 

In the prelude of four lines the poet calls upon the 
heavenly host; and in the postlude, consisting of 


BIBLICAL NATURE LYRICS 


169 


the last four lines, the poet ascribes power to the 
God of all nations. If one will take the trouble to 
write out the poem, separating the prelude and the 
postlude from the fifteen lines which give the sub¬ 
stance of the thought, and dividing these fifteen 
lines into three stanzas of five lines each, he will 
better appreciate both the art and the thought of 
the poem. It is important to observe the expressive 
words in which the fury of the storm is described, 
and the repetition, s even times, of t he, word “voice" 
which signifies thunder. The “flames of fire” stand 
for the lightning. 

The leading thought of the poem is suggested by 
the word “glory” in verse 9. It expresses that 
exultant joy in the phenomena of nature, which 
persons of poetic temperament often feel in a great 
storm. The most important religious idea is found 
in the last four lines, which suggest the sense of 
the security of those who belong to God. Compare 
with these last four lines, Edwin Markham’s The 
Place of Peace. 

At the heart of the cyclone tearing the sky 
And flinging the clouds and the towers by, 

Is a place of central calm; 

So here in the roar of mortal things, 

I have a place where my spirit sings, 

In the hollow of God’s Palm. 

3. Nature as the Garment of God. 

Psalm 104 “gives a charming and highly poetic 
version of the creation-story’ in Genesis. It stands 
in contrast with Psalm 103, which describes the 
revelation of God in human history. Psalm 104 
praises God for the revelation of His character in 
the creation and sustenance of the universe. The 




170 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


suggestion, everywhere appearing in this poem, that 
nature is but a garment that covers the spirit of 
God, has a wonderful parallel in a poem written by 
King Ikhnaton in Egypt in the fourteenth century 
before Christ. 

O loving Aton, beginning of life! 

When thou riseth in the Eastern horizon, 

Thou fillest every land with thy beauty, 

All cattle rest upon their pasturage, 

The trees and the plants flourish, 

The birds flutter in their marshes, 

Their wings uplifted in adoration to the Sun, 

All the sheep dance upon their feet, 

All winged things fly, 

They live when thou hast shone upon them. 

4. The Voice out of the Whirlwind. 

Job 38 should be read in connection with the 
whole book if one wishes to get the full meaning of 
it, for the “voice from the whirlwind” is the climax 
of the plot of the book. By itself, however, chapter 
38 is worthy of study. 

Observe, first, how many different elements of 
nature are described in beautiful poetic phrase. In 
these phrases one feels the response of the worship¬ 
ful spirit of the writer to the divine spirit manifest 
in all the powers of nature. In Sherman’s Manu¬ 
scripts of God man’s ability to respond to a multitude 
of things in nature is well described. 

il Between the Alps and the tiniest blossom that must be 
wooed out of its hiding place, what unnumbered millions 
of things there are that can move him, either to a pianis¬ 
simo response, or to thoughts and feelings that lie too deep 
for tears. Through his five senses,—and one knows not 
how many more—life continually plays upon a myriad 
strings which respond in thought and feeling, now waking 
melodies no man has ever been able wholly to transcribe 
or discords which spur him on to more perfect harmonies. ’' 


BIBLICAL NATURE LYRICS 


171 


In the second place, study the figures of speech in 
which this poet, perhaps the most brilliant that ever 
dealt with religious subjects, expressed his thoughts 
of God in nature. Explain the meaning of the fol¬ 
lowing figures: ‘ ‘ when the morning stars sang, ’ ’ 
“who shut up the sea with doors,” “take hold of the 
ends of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out,” 
“changed as the clay under the seal,” “gates of 
death,” “treasuries of the snow,” “bind the cluster 
of the Pleiades,” “loose the bands of Orion,” “pour 
out the bottles of heaven.” 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

How does the Bible differ in its view of nature from Greek 
literature ? 

Give the quotation from Wordsworth. 

Name six or more phases of nature that are finely described 
in the Old Testament. 

Write in your notebooks the analysis of Psalm 29. 

What words in this psalm stand for thunder and lightning? 

What is the leading thought of the psalm? 

What is the difference between Psalm 103 and 104? 

Quote verses from Psalm 104 that suggest God’s presence 
within nature. 

What parallel to this psalm is found in Egyptian literature? 

Make a list of all the different elements of nature referred 
to Job 38. 

Write in your notebooks a list of the different figures of 
speech in Job 38. 

How does this passage from Job produce the feeling of 
humility in man? 


Chapter XXXIV 

AN IMPRESSIONIST PICTURE OF OLD AGE 

A poem on old age. Ecclesiastes 11:9-12:8. 

1. The Structure of the Poem. 

This is the best description of old age in all liter¬ 
ature. Genung in his Words of Koheleth declares 
that “it is the acknowledged highwater mark of 
poetic utterance. One is reminded of the Ninth 
Symphony of Beethoven, wherein, the utmost re¬ 
sources of orchestra proving inadequate to his 
mighty musical conception, he must needs supple¬ 
ment wood and strings and brass by a chorus of 
living human voices.” 

If we print the poem in poetic form, the beauty of 
the structure is more evident. 

Before the sun is darkened, 

and the light of the moon and the stars, 
and the clouds return after the rain; 

In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, 
and the strong men shall bow themselves, 

And the grinders cease, because they are few, 

and those that look out of the windows be darkened, 
and the doors shall be shut in the street; 

When the sound of the grinding is low, 
and one rises at the voice of the birds, 
and all the daughters of music are brought low: 

Yea, one is afraid of a height, 
and terrors are in the way; 

And the almond-tree shall blossom, 
and the grasshopper shall be a burden, 
and the caperberry shall burst, 

Because man goes to his everlasting home, 
and the mourners go about the streets: 

172 


AN IMPRESSIONIST PICTURE OF OLD AGE 173 

Before the silver cord is snapped, 
or the golden bowl is broken, 

Or the pitcher is broken at the fountain, 
or the wheel is broken at the cistern, 

And the dust returns to the earth as it was. 

Following the suggestion of William Lyon Phelps, 
in the sentence in which he says, “One hardly knows 
which to admire most, the language or the rhythm; 
the swiftly following succession of vivid metaphors, 
or the swelling adagio music,’’ one would do well 
to study the rhythm of the clauses in 12:6, the 
metaphors in 12:2-6, and the “swelling adagio” 
effect in 12 :l-7. 

2. Explanation of Difficult Terms. 

The attempt to translate this poem into prose des¬ 
troys all that sense of “wistfulness, fear, tender¬ 
ness, regret,” and compassion, which in the original 
is expressed with such transcendent beauty. In¬ 
stead of saying “In the days when the keepers of 
the house shall tremble,” let us say, “In the days 
when a man’s arms have grown weak;” instead of 
“and the strong men shall bow themselves,” let us 
say, “When the legs are bent;” instead of “and the 
grinders shall cease because they are few,” “When 
a man is losing his teeth and his ability to masti¬ 
cate;” and instead of “and those that look out of 
the windows be darkened,” “when a man grows 
blind.” 

This prosaic translation may state the facts, but 
it takes away all the beauty from the chapter. It 
also shows the wide gulf between poetry and prose. 

In addition to the terms which have been ex¬ 
plained above, note the interpretation of the fol¬ 
lowing : 


174 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


“The clouds return after the rain.” This prob¬ 
ably means that in youth after an experience of 
sorrow the clouds are dispelled easily; in old age 
some shadow of sorrow always lingers. “Daughters 
of music.’’ This is thought to refer to the vocal 
chords as used in laughter. 

“Almond tree” This signifies white hair. 

“Silver chord.” This means the spine. 

“The golden bowl.” This is the skull. 

3. The Message of Age to Youth. 

Ecclesiastes 11:9 should not be interpreted as a 
cynical warning of judgment, but as a friendly 
statement of the inevitable result of devotion to 
pleasure. We may paraphase the passage in the 
following words: Let youth be happy; for God does 
not delight in severe punishment, but will-be fair 
in his estimate of young life. The first half of the 
verse is meant to be an approval of the natural joys 
of youth. This is in keeping with many other pas¬ 
sages in the book (9:7;11:10). Fowler translates 
11:10 as follows: 

Remove all worry from thy mind, 

And from thy body banish pain. 

Youth passes so quickly, and is in itself so full 
of natural joys, that one should not spend it in 
gloom, nor waste it in evil pleasures. 

Ecclesiastes 12 :1 teaches that a person should not 
wait until he is old before he thinks of religion, but 
should make it a natural part of his life in his youth. 
The last clause suggests that remembering God, and 
having pleasure are not incompatible ideas. 

Ecclesiastes 12:2 is intended to produce in the 
mind of the reader a feeling of tenderness in view 


AN IMPRESSIONIST PICTURE OF OLD AGE 175 

i 

of the physical infirmities of old age. Read in 
this connection Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies, especially 
the chapter on “The Mystery of Life.” 

Ecclesiastes 12:8, “all is vanity,” stands in con¬ 
trast with the optimism of the great poets of the nine¬ 
teenth century. Read Browning’s Rabbi Ben Ezra 
with its joyous looking forward to old age. 

Grow old along with me! 

The best is yet to be, 

The last of life, for which the first was made: 

Our times are in his hand 
Who saith, ‘‘A whole I planned, 

Youth shows but half; trust God: 
see all, nor be afraid! 

My times be in thy hand! 

Perfect the cup as planned! 

Let age approve of youth, and death 
complete the same! 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Give Professor Genung’s estimate of the poem on old age. 

What kind of parallelism is found in Ecclesiastes 12:3, 4? 

What does William Lyon Phelps mean by the “swelling 
adagio” music of this poem? 

Explain the meaning of the metaphorical phrases in 12:2-6. 

What is the teaching of 11:9? 

What kind of a parallelism is found in 11:10, and what is 
the meaning of the couplet? 

Discuss the question whether this poem is meant to be a 
warning against evil because of approaching death, or an 
appeal for sympathy for old age. 

Quote in your notebooks Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Act 
2, Scene 2, lines 38-43, on the cowardliness of fearing 
death. 

Report the substance of Ruskin’s chapter on the Mystery of 
Life in his Sesame and Lilies. 

Commit to memory the quotation from Browning given at 
the end of the chapter. 



Chapter XXXV 
TWO SONGS OP TRUST 

The eternal God is thy dwelling place. Psalm 90. 

Underneath are the everlasting arms. Psalm 91. 

1. Introduction. The Wide Appeal of the Psalms 

and Their Distinctive Message. 

Gladstone said, “In the Psalms is the whole music 
of the human heart, when touched by the hand of 
His Maker, in all its tones that whisper or swell; for 
every hope or fear, for every sigh and for every 
pang, for every form of strength and languor of 
disquietude and rest.” 

The Psalms differ from other parts of the Old 
Testament, not only because of their poetic form, 
but also in the quality of their thought. Old Testa¬ 
ment history narrates the events, while the Psalms 
show us the very hearts of those who are taking 
part in the events. Prophecy consists of the ser¬ 
mons and interpretations of current events given 
by men like Isaiah and Jeremiah, while the Psalms 
reveal to us the inmost feeling of these great leaders. 
Philosophy, such as we have in Proverbs and Eccles¬ 
iastes, is the Jewish interpretation of life, made up 
of practical observations, while the Psalms express 
the more intimate relations of the soul. 

2. The Eternal God is Thy Dwelling Place. 

Psalm 90 has influenced many poets of the world. 
Shakespeare in Macbeth uses the very words of 
the psalm in Act 5, Scene 5, lines 23-28. 

176 


TWO SONGS OF TRUST 


177 


11 Out, out, brief candle! 

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player 
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 

And then is heard no more; it is a tale 
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 

Signifying nothing.” 

Wordsworth’s Intimations of Immortality trans¬ 
lates the thought of the first part of Psalm 90 into 
the following beautiful words: 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. 

Our soul that rises with us, our life’s star, 

Hath had elsewhere its setting 
And cometh from afar; 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

And not in utter nakedness, 

But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
From God, who is our home. 


Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
Of the eternal silence. 

There is a sort of pendulum movement in this 
psalm, which emphasizes the two thoughts that the 
author was seeking to contrast, the greatness of God 
and the weakness of man. Verses 1 and 2 speak of 
the eternity and power of God, while 4, 5, and 6 
describe the brevity and frailty of man’s life. This 
pendulum movement may be traced throughout the 
psalm. 

The three main divisions of the psalm are curiously 
suggested by three couplets, called ‘‘leads.” Verse 1 
is the “lead” for the following five verses, and the 
thought suggested in the “lead” is developed in the 
first stanza of the psalm. Verses 7 and 12 are the 
“leads” for the second and third stanzas. Faithful 
study of the development of the thought is the most 
important task in connection with this great song of 
trust. 



178 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


3. Underneath are the Everlasting Arms. 

Read Psalm 91 antiphonally. The students 
should be divided into two groups, group 1 reading 
verses 1 and 2; group 2, verses 3-7; group 1 should 
read 9a, and group 2, 9b-13. The voice of God is 
heard in verses 14-16, which should be read by the 
teacher. Observe that the prayer in Psalm 90:17 
is answered in Psalm 91. 

This psalm pictures, in many ways, the happiness 
of those who trust in God. For example, in verse 

3, God is described as having wings with which he 
protects his people, as the bird its young. In verse 
5, the one who puts his confidence in God is regarded 
as safe as Israel was when the destroying angel 
wrought such havoc among the Egyptians (Exodus 
12:23). Verse 11 has been explained to mean that 
every man has a guardian angel who watches over 
him. “Adder,’’ in verse 13, refers to the Egyptian 
cobra. This was the reptile by which Cleopatra 
took her own life. “Hath known my name,” in 
verse 14, teaches that one has to learn how to seek 
God in prayer in order to be successful in his relig¬ 
ious life. 

4. The Teachings of These Two Psalms. 

A few of the important lessons of these psalms 
may be suggested: 

God is our home. See 90:1. 

The frailty and transitoriness of man. See 90:5,6. 

“We are such stuff 

As dreams are made of, and our little life 

Is rounded with a sleep.’’ 

The possibility of perfect confidence in God, with 


TWO SONGS OF TRUST 


179 


a resulting peace of mind. See 91:1,2. Whittier 
has expressed this trust, in his Eternal Goodness. 

I know not where His islands lift 
Their fronded palms in air; 

I only know I cannot drift 
Beyond His love and care. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Quote Gladstone’s description of the Psalms. 

How do the Psalms differ from the history, prophecy, and 
philosophy of the Old Testament? 

What thought in Psalm 90 is repeated in Shakespeare’s 
Macbeth, and what words are literally quoted by Shakes¬ 
peare from the Psalms? 

Describe the pendulum movement in Psalm 90, and tell 
how it makes the thought of the psalm clear. 

How are the three main divisions in Psalm 90 indicated? 

What is the logical relation between Psalms 90 and 91? 

Explain the following words in Psalm 91: “wings”, 

* 1 terror by night ”, “ his angels “ adder ”, “ hath known 
my name”. 

Write in your notebooks the analysis of Psalm 91 to illus¬ 
trate the possible antiphonal use of it. 

What is the greatest thought in each of the two songs in 
this chapter? 


Chapter XXXVI 

THE HYMNBOOK OF THE PILGRIMS 


I will lift up mine eyes. Psalm 121. 

The escape of the captives. Psalm 124. 

They that trust. Psalm 125. 

1. The Origin of this Hymnbook. 

In the midst of our Psalms stands a little group 
of fifteen poems, once used by the temple choir in 
the services of worship. Our whole Psalter was 
made up of groups like this, and we shall under¬ 
stand our Book of Psalms better, if we study the 
group of Pilgrim Psalms in detail. 

There are two views of the origin of this group. 
One is that it consists of songs of the exiles return¬ 
ing from Babylon. This view is supported by many 
allusions to captivity and distress. See 120:1; 123 : 
3,4; 124:7; 126:1,4. The other view regards these 
fifteen songs as sung by Jews in connection with the 
pilgrimages to Jerusalem to attend the annual 
feasts. Caravans of villagers journeyed together 
for safety, and after making camp at night, and eat¬ 
ing the evening meal, they gathered to sing the 
songs of their people. When they came in sight 
of the hills on which Jerusalem was built, they 
would sing: 

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, 

From whence cometh my help. 

These two views may be united into one explana¬ 
tion of these psalms. Some of the songs originated 

180 


THE HYMNBOOK OF THE PILGRIMS 


181 


among the exiles, escaping from Babylon, and were 
afterwards used by the pilgrims to the annual 
feasts. It would bo very natural for the Jews 
through the generations succeeding the deliverance 
of the exiles to keep in memory those tragic events. 

2. The Progress of Thought in these Pilgrim 

Psalms. 

Moulton in his Modern Reader’s Bible combines 
these fifteen psalms into five groups of three, and 
suggests that there is a progress of thought in each 
group. For example. Psalm 120 is the exiles’ cry 
in Babylon; 121 shows the escaped exile on his way 
to the Holy City; 122 represents him arriving in 
Jerusalem. Again, in the last group of three, 132 
is a temple-dedication hymn; 133 describes the unity 
of the people in their worship at the temple; and 134 
is a recessional for the departure from the temple. 

3. I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes. 

The outstanding literary qualities of Psalm 121 
are its unity and its simplicity. It has four qua¬ 
trains, and each has two progressive couplets. A 
curious stairlike structure binds the four quatrains 
together. This structure is indicated by the repe¬ 
tition of the word “help” in the first and second 
couplets, and by the use of the word “keep” six 
times over. 

The teaching of the psalm is suggested by the 
relation of quatrain 1, in which the poet speaks in 
the first person, to the last three quatrains, in which 
the poet talks of God, in the third person, as man’s 
great helper. The caravan travellers were often in 
danger from robbers and exposure, and such a song 


182 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


as Psalm 121 would be a real comfort, as they 
camped for the night. Observe how the author 
stirs the reader’s emotions in his contrasted use of 
negative and positive expressions in verses 3-5. 

The association of God with the mountains in 
verse 1 has often been repeated in the literature of 
the world, and suggests the unchangeableness of 
God. 

4. The Escape of the Captives. 

Psalm 124 is of more than usual interest because 
of two features: The stairlike movement of the 
rhythm, produced by means of the series of sentences, 
repeating in different forms the same thought. 
Count the number of clauses in the first part of this 
psalm that repeat the sentiment “when men rose up 
against us.” It is to be noted, also, that the succes¬ 
sive clauses each repeat a part of the thought of 
the preceding sentence, which gives us the feeling 
that the writer goes back a few steps to get a good 
running start. 

The other feature is the large number of vivid 
images. In these eight short verses there are not 
less than eight such images. The picture of destruc¬ 
tion, which is so prominent here, is very like that in 
Lamentations 3 :54 and Psalm 42 :7. 

5. They That Trust in Jehovah. 

Psalm 125 was sung near the journey’s end, per¬ 
haps at that moment when Jerusalem burst on 
the sight, as the pilgrims climbed the shoulder of 
the Mount of Olives. The psalm is divided into 
two parts, both in thought and form. The first six 


THE HYMNBOOK OF THE PILGRIMS 183 

lines (verses 1 and 2) fall into two stanzas which 
have an interesting structure, as follows: 

They that trust in the Lord are as Mount Zion, 
Which cannot be moved, 

But abideth forever. 

As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, 

So the Lord is round about his people, 

From this time forth and forever more. 

This is an example of what might be called an 
artistic irregularity. The Hebrew poets often en¬ 
larged a couplet by adding one line, producing what 
is called a “strain.’’ That signifies the addition of 
a short line which completes the meaning of the 
second line. The “strain’’ is more commonly 
found in the ancient poetry of the Hebrews than in 
the Psalms. It will be good practice to try to find 
two or more of these “strains’’ in Exodus 15:6-11. 

This poem is completed at the end of the second 
verse, consisting of two couplets each enlarged by 
a third explanatory line. Bead the two couplets 
without lines 3 and 6, and note that the thought 
is finished apart from the extra lines, but at the same 
time these lines add much to the poetry. 

There are two grand images in these six lines: 
one of a man who becomes as strong and immovable 
as a mountain by trusting in Jehovah; the other of 
the encircling mountains representing the protec¬ 
tion that God gives to the human soul. 

Verses 3-5 have a different structure and thought. 
Their import is that the Hebrews shall not suffer 
from foreign domination lest they be led to do 
wrong; and that God will bless the good and punish 
the evil. The reason for the combination of these 
two groups into one psalm is unknown. 


184 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


An example of the widespread use of the Pilgrim 
Psalms is found in the cablegram announcing the 
escape of the missionaries and soldiers from the Brit¬ 
ish Legation in China at the time of the Boxer upris¬ 
ing in 1900. The message was worded as follows: 

Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of 
the fowler; the snare is broken, and we are escaped. 
Psalm 124:7. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

Explain the origin of the Pilgrim Psalms, or as they are 
sometimes called, the Psalms of Ascent. 

How may the two common theories of the origin be combined 
4 into one? 

Write in your notebooks an arrangement of these fifteen 
psalms into five groups with three in a group, giving a 

title to each psalm. See point 2 in this chapter, and the 
Modern Reader’s Bible. 

Explain the stairlike structure of Psalm 121. 

What is the main teaching of Psalm 121? 

Explain the curious rhythm of Psalm 124. 

Make a list of the figures in Psalm 124. 

What was the purpose of the author in writing that psalm? 

When would it be appropriate for a Jewish caravan to sing 
Psalm 125? 

Describe the two parts into which this psalm is divided. 
What is a “strain”? 

Give examples of the “strain” from this psalm and from 
Exodus 15. 

What are the two chief ideas of Psalm 125? 


Conclusion 


HOW THIS LITERATURE BECAME A PART 

OF OUR BIBLE 

The Bible has been compared to a river whose be¬ 
ginnings are hidden from one standing on the bank at 
a point below the place where the last tributary gave 
its contribution to the full stream. As it sweeps on 
with all its elements united, bearing on its bosom 
precious cargoes safely to their destination, no one 
would think that it was made up of a thousand little 
streams, which in their turn owe their never failing 
supply to One Great Source. But back of the river 
and all its minor tributaries and branches is the 
great ocean which no one can explain apart from the 
Creator of heaven and earth. 

So to the casual reader in our day the Bible seems 
a complete and indivisible whole, a miracle of grace 
and power. As we read it more carefully, and trace 
the different parts that have been combined to form 
the perfect whole to their sources, we find that the 
Bible like the river has had many contributory 
streams. 

Miriam and Deborah sang their songs of deliver¬ 
ance and victory; Jotham repeated his fable, and 
Elijah gave his orations; the bards of Israel told the 
stories of the Creation and the Flood, and enlivened 
many a fireside with the tale of the Wooing of Re- 
bekah and the loyalty of Ruth. These and many 
other rivulets of song and story found their way into 
the early literature of the Hebrews. 

185 


186 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


The legal literature of Israel began with Moses, 
and, as the centuries went by, the legal tributary 
added a great volume of material to the onrushing 
streams of inspired thought. 

By the year 850 B. C., in Jerusalem, in the reign 
of Jehoshaphat, the Jehovist had written the first 
great history of the Hebrew nation from the point of 
view of Judah; by the year 750 the Elohist had writ¬ 
ten his statement of the growth of the nation from 
Abraham to Jeroboam II, making prominent the 
incidents and places belonging to Northern Israel, for 
undoubtedly he was a resident of the north. 

These two histories continued to be useful as long 
as the two rival kingdoms of Judah and Northern 
Israel survived. When, however, in 722 B. C., Sam¬ 
aria was captured by the Assyrians, and Jerusalem 
was left as the one capital to which all the Hebrews 
could look for leadership, the two histories were har¬ 
monized and rewritten to form one consistent state¬ 
ment of the development of Israel to the middle of the 
seventh century. 

In the year 621 a new contribution to the rapidly 
increasing volume of literature appeared. It was a 
revision of the law of Moses and a new and brilliant 
description of the significance of Moses’ life in the 
Book of Deuteronomy, probably written during the 
seventh century by a group of prophetic and priestly 
reformers (II Kings 22, 23). Meanwhile the great 
prophets from Amos on had given their messages, and 
the psalmists had begun to prepare their hymns and 
prayers. 

During the Babylonian exile a new sense of the 
value of their literature dawned upon the Jews, and 
the histories and prophetic rolls and patriotic songs 


CONCLUSION 


187 


were collected, copied, and preserved with care. The 
loss of the temple in 586 had led the priests to write 
out the directions for the sacrifices, lest in the exile 
the ritual be forgotten. During the exile, also, the 
priests, aided, perhaps, by Ezekiel began to rewrite 
the whole history from the Creation. This work was 
continued by successive generations of priests until a 
fourth historical work, which scholars call the Priest 
Code (P), had been completed. About the year 400 
B. C. this was woven into one document with JE and 
D to form our present Pentateuch. 

The first clear description of any writings which 
were regarded as sacred Scripture among the Hebrews 
is found in Nehemiah 8. There we are told that in 
the seventh month of the Jewish year, that is, in the 
autumn, the people assembled for the reading of the 
Law. The reading of the first day was only a begin¬ 
ning of the presentation of the book which was placed 
before the people, translated from the Hebrew into the 
Aramaic language, which had become their form of 
speech in Babylon, and was explained to them so that 
they could understand. (Lewis, How the Bible 
Grew) 

On the second day the reading was continued 
(8 :13). Some time during that day the readers came 
to the portion of the Law in which was given an ac¬ 
count of the feast of booths. The language is so 
specific that we can infer from it with certainty where 
in our Pentateuch they were reading. It was in what 
we call the twenty-third chapter of the Book of Levi¬ 
ticus. We may see this easily from the following 
parallel arrangement of the two passages. 


188 


BIBLICAL LITERATURE 


Lev. 23:42 Neh. 8:14 

Ye shall dwell booths And they found written in 
seven days; all that are the law, how that Jehovah 
home-born in Israel shall had commanded by Moses, 
dwell in booths. that the children of Israel 

should dwell in booths in the 
feast of the seventh month. 


A similar comparison of passages in Exodus, Num¬ 
bers, and Deuteronomy with Nehemiah show that it 
was substantially our first five books of the Bible that 
were accepted as sacred Scripture on that memorable 
day in Jerusalem. 

The second part of our Old Testament to be ac¬ 
cepted as authoritative by the Jews consisted of a 
collection of the prophetic books. When Ezra and 
Nehemiah presented the Law to the people in Jerusa¬ 
lem, there was no mention of the Prophets. Though 
it was an occasion of the greatest religious import for 
the Israelites, one in which a reference to the majes¬ 
tic messages of the prophets would have been exceed¬ 
ingly fitting, there is no mention of any sacred Scrip¬ 
ture besides the Law. 

This does not mean that there were no prophetic 
books in the time of Ezra, but, rather, that the Proph¬ 
ets had not yet come to be recognized as sacred Scrip¬ 
ture. It was not until about 200 B. C. that we find 
references to the Prophets as the second sacred divis¬ 
ion of the Old Testament. 

The third part of our Old Testament called “The 
Rest of the Books,” or the “Writings”, included 
Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Sol¬ 
omon, Ruth, Lamentations, Esther, and Daniel. 
There are several lines of evidence to show that 
“The Rest of the Books” was not regarded as a sacred 
division of the Old Testament until the Council of 


CONCLUSION 


189 


Jamnia, about 90 A. D. By that time our whole 
Old Testament was regarded as the authoritative 
Bible of the Jews. 

The first Christians were Jews, and naturally ac¬ 
cepted the sacred book of their fathers as authorita¬ 
tive. When in later years the Christian Church 
gathered its basic documents into a sacred canon, 
called the New Testament, it was regarded as a con¬ 
tinuation of the Old Testament, and the two were 
combined to form our present Bible. 

This, in a few words, is the external history of the 
world’s greatest book. One person binds the two 
great divisions of that book, and indeed all the sixty- 
six books, into a real unity. That person is Jesus 
Christ, the central figure of human history. The New 
Testament is a portrait of Jesus Christ, and the Old 
Testament, as the early church understood it, was the 
divine foreshadowing of His coming. The Old Tes¬ 
tament had its source in a great yearning that God 
would reveal himself to man (Job 31:35), and its his¬ 
toric culmination in the coming of the Messiah, who 
was God’s supreme revelation to man and whose glori¬ 
ous character radiates love, light, and hope through 
the pages of the New Testament. 











































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